


Fever Pitch

by Liminality (TyndallBlue)



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Illness, M/M, Questionable Consent, War Fic, Wilderness Survival, hopeless otp is hopeless, it's always drachma, trapped behind enemy lines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-25
Updated: 2015-05-30
Packaged: 2017-11-22 08:44:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TyndallBlue/pseuds/Liminality
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Edward never expected to see combat, let alone be forced to endure it at Mustang's side. War changes everything.  Additional tags will be at the beginning of chapters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Welcome Spring

**Author's Note:**

> "It is very queer that the unhappiness of the world is so often brought on by small men." All Quiet on the Western Front

### An Early Spring

The weather was beginning to change; he could hear it in the steady fall of snow from the tall thin trees of the Drachman forests as they finally began to spread their branches from under the weight of the long winter. It was a change that was not welcome, even with the promise of warmer days in the short summer, because it meant slushy roads and soggy marches. The chill dampness seemed to pull even more heat from their bones than the screaming winds that had threatened to rip the camps apart all winter. Edward rolled over in his cot, his woolen layers beginning to freeze as night fell and the temperature dipped. He had retired early, men were still murmuring outside of their tent, huddling around fire barrels filled with precious scraps of wood and lice-filled blankets. In Roy's cot, there slept a stranger; a temporary place keeper while Roy was sent to the backlines to ride out the last of his Trench Fever. Their breathing was heavy and unfamiliar, absent of the rasping desperation that punctuated Roy's slumber. But sleep evaded him, even as the shivering outside chatter drifted to tents. He sighed heavily, lungs full of pins and needles. It would only be a matter of time before the birds began singing and before he knew it, dim sunlight began to fill the tent, turning in murky, grey, and miserable. His bunkmate coughed and rolled over, sliding soggy socks into his boots. Briefly the interior came into focus as he slipped out the flaps. Edward groaned, flexing stiff fingers as he sat up. His limbs felt at fuzzy as his mind from sleep deprivation. He had barely slept since Roy left.

Eating had lost its pleasure. He went through the motions of chewing, trying to break down the hard tack down into something less like glue and ignore the slimy sickly texture of whatever today's canned meat rations were. He cursed to himself quietly that with the alchemy available today that they couldn't come up with something that didn't taste like it had been left out in the sun for weeks. He watched as men milled around, waiting to be sent to battle. They were nearing the Drachman trenches and the radio crackled with reports of reconnaissance troops creeping through the now dense and darkened woods. Nervous energy crackled through the men as they finished their morning meals. Edward snorted. Seriously, as if you could even call them meals. He knew he would enjoy the same meal for lunch and dinner. If he was lucky maybe someone would trade their canned fish for the small stash of cigarettes and alcohol he'd saved from his rations. Without Roy around, he had no one trade with. He didn't like talking with the other men. Something about their eyes made his skin crawl inside his great coat. Behind his perch on a log a tree limb cracked and everyone jumped. There was a din of clicking as weapons were pulled to the ready and the alchemists help out their hands waiting, rings glimmering in the early morning. A squirrel skittered down the tree and away, prints crisp where the snow had refrozen overnight. A young specialist to Edward's left laughed high and tinny with hysteria, lowering his weapon. Several others joined, but the tension did not leave. Taking pity, Edward drew his flask from his breast and offered it to the young specialist. The boys brown eyes were over bright and bloodshot. He hoped his didn't look the same.

"Keep it," he murmured, walking away. His gait was uneven and hitched in the cold.

* * *

Roy was back. That was what the enlisted were murmuring. At last they would be saved, the Flame Alchemist would lead them to victory. Edward sniffed at their optimism. How appropriate that it would rain today, much like the day before. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd seen sunlight. Part of him almost missed the dry frigid winter to this mucky misery but his ports ached at the thought of the nights that he and Roy had spent spooned into one cot against the cold. He had almost jumped straight from his skin the first night the Colonel Bastard had slipped into his cot. Roy's hot breath shuddered on his neck, drowning out the wind that seeped under the edges of their less than glamorous officer's tent.

"Been too long since you seen a skirt or something, Colonel Bastard?" He'd said bitterly, pulling away and rolling over with something akin to fury, but Roy's large gloved hands held him against his body.

"Don't flatter yourself, I'm tired of being cold." He'd whispered, pressing his face to the blonde warmth of Edward's hair. His own sense of obstinacy told him to leap from the bed and claim Roy's cot as his own, but he heard the hitching breaths behind him and that, combined with the aching cries of his automail told him to stay, so he did.

Now he wound his way through the cramped circular tents to their own which stood alone, a luxury of Roy's rank. He wanted to see him with his own eyes. A wave of warmth and the weak smell of instant coffee hit him and there, thin and pale on the bed was Roy, his great coat hanging limp and unstarched over the trunk at the foot of his bed.

"So the medics weren't able to fucking kill ya, huh bastard?" Edward forced himself to sneer.

* * *

It was happening again, that screaming that he couldn't silence. It kept echoing cavernously through his mind, even as he clenched is fingers in the mud, energy rippling through the soil and opening it whole beneath the Drachman's before him. Heat sizzled overhead from Roy's fingertips blossoming into great plumes amidst the enemy troops, and Edward flinched; he'd never felt this sort of chaos before. Sweat seemed to bead and freeze almost instantly on his face and his heart felt like it was in time with the spats of gunfire, constantly starting and stopping. All of this for the sopping mud beneath his feet? He would have spit in the damned trench if the man hadn't appeared before him, blue eyes full of rage and a simple traditional knife in his hand. All it took was a crackle of energy and he was gone, Edward having neatly slit his throat. The man's blood soon turned to pale little crystals in his joints.

"Nice one, Fullmetal," Roy managed to struggle out, wrists flicking almost casually like he was dealing cards with catastrophic results. Edward snarled.

"Fuck you, old man." He ripped the earth open again and the men that slipped in soon found themselves in their graves as it zipped itself shut once more. A look of pain crossed Roy's face briefly, and Edward leapt forward into the trench, hating the man's pity. Freezing water poured into his boots, but at least he didn't have to see Roy's face again. Alchemy didn't even seem to cross his mind as he raced down the trench, cutting down anyone who wasn't in the dapper blue of the Amestrian army. The blood ran warm down his arm, turning the cloth a dirty black. This wasn't what he thought it would be.

There was no heroism here, with flags waving proudly ahead of the dogs of war, and between the battles there were no good ol' boys drinking beer and talking trash about the Drachman's like he'd imagined in the photos that graced the walls of Roy's house. No one grinned goofily with a cigarette between their lips like Hughes did in Roy's living room, looking handsome in sepia. It had been awhile since he'd been there, but he didn't recall any blood drenched boys in the simple maple frames. What would Al think of him now? He looked down and saw dirty cloth engulfing his right arm, red trickling from the edges. He was arm deep in a man's chest, and he could do nothing but laugh as everything went white around him.

* * *

It hurt, everything hurt. The rain didn't make him feel any better, sucking what little warmth he had in his body. Murky worlds filtered through the eerie silence, someone began shaking him. Roy came into sudden focus, face unreadable.

"Major Elric, get out of the mud," he said sternly. Edward rolled to his side shakily, a telltale trickle on his neck telling him he was bleeding again, and vomited violently. His whole body shook as he emptied his stomach, and Roy made no motions to comfort him.

"Why did you not erect a wall when I told you too, Major?" Mustang straightened and stood, hand clenched tightly around his own arm. The younger boy groaned and struggled to his knees. Wall? What fucking wall?

"I couldn't hear you," he argued.

"That's not an excuse soldier."

"Well I at least take it we won I take it, or your ugly ass wouldn't be standing here." Shivers began to take over his body, some from cold some from fear, but he managed to struggle to his feet. A disconcerting hum refused to shake out of his right ear.

"At least thirty men died from your disobedience. Don't let it happen again, Major." Mustang's boots even managed a click as he turned on his heel and strode away towards camp. "Take him to the clinic." A medic was at the young alchemist's side, a steadying hand on his shoulder as Edward clenched and unclenched his flesh hand.

His anger simmered quietly until they began their examination. He hated the clinical tent almost more than he hated the hospital. Not only did they shine lights into his eyes and poke, prod, and squeeze his injured limbs, but the whole process was laced with a scent of decay and quiet moans from behind curtains. The dull throb of his head made everything even more confusing, the attendants words seemed to slur together making them difficult to understand. Someone must not have been doing their job because he was soon escorted back to his empty tent after receiving an "adequate" bill of health and instructions to rest. Roy wasn't in and the heater was off making the warmer solitude of his bed inviting. The drying muck of his uniform crackled as he changed and goosebumps shivered across his skin. Everything hurt and sleep was almost instantaneous.

* * *

Edward woke to a cold sweat and a warm body on his back. Mustangs hand lay on his thigh, legs tangled with his own. He didn't understand why the bastard did this, with his body nearly half metal he probably sucked in more heat than he gave off. Shifting slowly, he moved the older man's hand to the mattress, taking some of the pressure off his aching ribs by rolling over. He wanted to shove the man out of his bed, punch him for what he had said early, like it was his fucking fault he didn't hear him, but he didn't have the energy to summon his anger. The man looked older in his sleep, small wrinkles decorated otherwise immaculate skin, and now dark circles were beginning to pool under his eyes. There was something disconcerting about seeing him this way, uniform unstarched, the dark angle of his jaw shadowed with stubble, let alone curled up next to him in a bed. Rain began to patter against the tent. Even when this fucking war ended, things would never be the same.

The months had changed too much in himself let alone between him and Roy. He'd seen the look in his eyes as he burned hundreds of men to death, calmly sending out circles of flame that wrapped around his comrades calculatingly. It chilled Ed more than the wind. Ed wondered what his own face looked like as he sent men to their graves. He wished he could go back to where their biggest disputes were over short jokes. A smile gripped the split corners of his lips; he didn't remember the last time they had had such an exchange, or that he had lost his temper over any insinuations. A laugh escaped him as a cough, causing the officer across from him to stir. His eyes cracked open, warm and muddled by sleep.

"Fullmetal?" He whispered, voice husky and cracked.

"Sorry, bastard." Edward murmured. "What are you doing in my bed again?" He teased halfheartedly. Roy licked his cracked lips.

"You're ok?" The blonde nodded hesitantly, wincing as the sharp pain in his head. "I'm glad." He felt the older man's hand move to hold his back firmly.

"Like you really care, geezer," his voice hitched. The intimacy of this conversation, their faces so close made him nervous. He imagined this was how parents spoke to each other, alone in their beds with the children asleep.

"You scared me. I saw the explosion, and thought I'd be picking pieces of you off the ground." He words still slurred, like he was speaking in a dream. Edward was willing to bet he wouldn't remember this tomorrow. "But you were alive. I don't know how." The man felt hot. Was his fever returning? Suddenly his bedmate's face filled his vision, dry cracked lips pressed uncomfortably to his own. Roy gripped his back tightly with one hand while the other moved up to gently hold his clenched jaw, attempting to soothe it. It lasted only a second before his body relaxed back into sleep, but unwelcome tears already filled Ed's eyes. Why did this war have to ruin everything?

* * *

The next morning was the beginning of more waiting. The big shots at Central needed more time to calculate their next move. The trenches had been taken, led by the Hero of Ishbal, Colonel Mustang, and now they were left to hold their position in the persisting rain. What Ed wouldn't give to see sunlight? He could think of very little he wouldn't give, especially the Colonel. Some days the paths through the camp were flooded up to their ankles. Recon teams often came back covered up to their waists in mud, none of it boded well for pressing further North and up into the mountains where temporary rivers had begun to carve their way to the valleys. Advancement would be dangerous, the men weren't stupid, but the brass were, and they didn't listen.

The rain didn't stop for days. It brought with it melancholy, the men confined to their small dark tents for nearly all hours of the day. When supplies finally came in, over two weeks late, excitement gripped the soldiers. Somehow, with enough alcohol, several banded together and erected a recreation tent. Really it was just an expanse of sheltered space, devoid of any lighting or decoration. Still, they gathered there, milling around in a way that hadn't been possible previously. Some brought crates to sit on and dealt cards on a makeshift table, others got together to smoke. Edward finally felt drawn to investigate, but he clung to the edges where he was sprinkled with rain. He didn't have Mustang's rapport with his subordinates. Somehow, he picked out someone familiar, the specialist with brown eyes. He had survived the push. A part of him was surprised at the relief he felt. The boy caught his gaze and waved him over to their game.

"Major, come join us!" With great hesitance, he did so.

The boy was Specialist Connely, Edward soon learned. He was 19 years old and was actually from just outside of Dublith. He was an excitable boy with brown hair and a lot of interest but no skill in alchemy. Obviously this was his first time in any sort of combat and really he had only joined the army out of no other options. Awkwardly, he handed Edward back his flask before dealing out the next round of cards for Xenotime Spit. The other two Specialist's they played with kept casting Edward mistrustful glances and he felt some guilt at his quietness and the reserved expression he wore. They were older than him he realized, yet he vastly outranked them, he was in charge of leading them to their deaths. He had nothing in common with them as they talked of music and girls back home. Any conversation Connely attempted to start between them was generally brief, Edward fumbling to get down to his level. After a few energetic rounds, Edward smiled at all of them and thanked them for their invitation and excused himself from the table. He had meetings to attend to.

* * *

One week it was the rain, next it was the rats driven by the flooding. They crept in every shadow, eating their food, chewing the precious, precious wires that connected t hem to the outside world. But at least they kept his mind off the Colonel. The man sat across from him, eyes darting into the black corners of the tent with every scratch. Edward had said nothing of that night where the dark-haired man's hand at crept up his thigh and held still those other quieter , nights where it happened again. His nights came to be punctuated with the damp bursts of Roy's breath on his neck and the weight of his hand on his stomach. But their mornings were still the same, Roy waking Edward with the rattling of Roy making his coffee, but were filled with much more silence.

* * *

There was a new sickness now, the techs seemed to whisper, worse that the Trench Fever that spread like fire from the lice. It killed you in days, made your lungs rot in your chest, and bruised your flesh in your sleep. The Cretan Flu they had called it. It became such a problem that the officers had to be briefed on it. Pictures of men with soft black poppies of bruises all over their chests and faces, pale terrified faces filled innocent looking manila folders. It had been ravaging the other camps, working East towards them, and proved to having a higher kill rate than the Drachman's. Despite himself, he found himself watching the other men nervously for the sound of that first discreet sniffle. When the men were finally notified of it's presence they began hunting rats with a renewed vigor. Some began nailing the rat's tails over the door to their tents like trophies. Neither Ed nor Roy had the heart to tell them that it wasn't the rats that carried it.

* * *

The waiting might've been the hardest part, Edward couldn't really decide. Between waiting for the flu to reach them or the Brass and Drachman's to find them, Roy had grown thin and Edward had started to shave. He'd learned by awkwardly watching the other soldiers at the communal sinks and fashioned his own straight razor with scraps from the broken bayonets in the salvage pile. One evening when all of the soldiers gathered at the rec tent for mail call he found himself staring down his reflection in the mirror, soap lathered all over his face in a bubbly beard. Licking his lips he tasted soap and took the blade to his cheek, scraping away sparse whiskers. He hissed through his teeth at the chafing and reddening of his skin and moved to pull the blade up his neck next.

"You'll slit your throat like that, Fullmetal," came Roy's dark voice and his face manifested above Edward's own. Like that he did nearly slit his own throat as he jumped.

"What the fuck, Colonel?" He growled, but a familiar expression was crossing Roy's face, the corners of his lips curling.

"War finally making a man out of you?" He nearly laughed. Edward said nothing, instead turning back to his warped image, trying finish with short gentle strokes of the blade.

"Absolutely wrong," Roy chimed in. "Who's been teaching you? Did you even lather?"

"Shut up!" Edward whined, embarrassed. "I used soap," he murmured and Roy raised both his eyebrows.

"You'll be in pain tomorrow doing that, Fullmetal." And Roy's hand was on his own, pulling the razor down. "Trust me." It pulled expertly across his skin despite his insufficient lather. "The key is to shave with the facets of the face, if you go with the grain it can leave behind a lot of stubble. He held perfectly still, watching as Roy worked. He said more about angles and the best way to hold the razor. The simultaneous normalcy and strangeness of the situation overwhelmed him. He couldn't remember the last time Roy had said this many words, or had the life back in his eyes.

"We'll have to get you a safety razor and lather, but this should do." He murmured, brushing his fingers over Edward's cheek.

"Thanks, bastard." Edward mumbles, started to clean the sink and blade, skin of his cheeks flushed.

"I can only teach you so much. When you get leave I recommend you go to a barber to learn the finer points." He was smiling. Edward wished this moment didn't cause him so much pain, especially how small Roy looked with his greatcoat draped around his shoulders.

* * *

He dreamt of apple pie, warm filling spreading slowly on the plate. The creamy vanilla ice cream melting into the golden juice of apple, speckled with cinnamon. Al and Winry were laughing as the smooth sunlight gave the air the quality of clean lemons. His mouth watered as he filled it with spoonful after spoonful of the sickeningly sweet substance. Winry sat and smiled, Pinako beside her. And Al, Al was eating too, shoveling the spoonfuls past his very human lips. Wind came in and lifted the stray hairs on the back of his neck.

They'd won. Al's body was back. Ed didn't even care his arm and leg weren't returned to him. He could hold his brother in his arms again. The breeze came through again, warm, damp, and rhythmic on his neck.

Then consciousness came back to him, cold crawling through the sheets to nibble at his fingers. Roy seemed to be a continuous presence of warmth during the rainy, dark nights. Sighing he curled the Colonel's fingers with his metal ones, pulling the hand to his heart, waiting for sleep to claim him again.

* * *

Brass called, finally wanting to do something about the mucky No Man's Land of the trenches that stretched between their meager camp and wilderness filled enemy territory. Edward volunteered to lead the team, his youthful impulsiveness rearing it's head for the first time in months. For his briefing Edward shaved, finally opening the paper and twine package that Roy had given him. He had insisted that Edward accept it as a gift upon reaching manhood. He swore he could see a glimmer of Roy's old smile cross his lips as he walked into the heated ten. It was a grin of victory as he took in Edward's smooth cheeks, neat uniform and polished boots. Edward was finally heeling at the side of military.

He flexed his cold hand, pressing it closely to the small of his back for warmth as he stood at ease. Roy's gaze warmed him with it's intensity, and his smirk practically crackled with energy.

"You should be happy, Fullmetal. It's not often that one allows a Major, nonetheless a famous state alchemist, to trivialize himself with a simple terrestrial reconnaissance mission. Roy tented his fingers, elbows propped on the simple flimsy desk.

"Then they're stupid for not sending an expert on geology, especially in these mountains, alchemic resources are more important than ever. You should, know that Colonel." Edward tried to fix his eyes squarely three inches above Roy's glossy black hair. He was always intrigued as to why it see it seemed to reflect blue in the proper light. Roy made a soft noncommittal sound and squinted down at the papers before him in the dim light. His tapering fingers felt at his breast pocket briefly before pulling out a battered pair of reading glasses.

"Now I'm sure you're familiar with the basic idea. This is to be a basic area reconnaissance mission, taking in stock possible obstructions for our vehicles, resources for a new camp location, and the location of any enemy encampments. You are not to approach anyone you come across. Your area of exploration is to the limit of our Area of Operation. You findings will be reported to the FSCL and used in future combat so their accuracy is critical. You will be assigned one platoon and have the support of the three Sergeants with you. Do you understand?"

Edward's stomach lurched as his heels clicked with his salute. His fingertips snapped to his temple as Roy quirked his eyebrow.

"Yes, Sir," he chimed to Roy's silence.

"Is something the matter, Fullmetal?"

"No, Sir." Again, Roy was silent, motioning like he wished to rise and move about the desk. Ultimately, he didn't, and just sighed, the dark mass of his coat rising and falling.

"You will leave at sunrise tomorrow from the North Point of camp. At ease, Major." Roy looked away as Edward's arms back to the small of his back again, focused squarely on some sort of map spreading over its surface. The blonde bit his lip, already missing the heat of his gaze.

* * *

Edward walked the grounds as the sun fell, silently saying good bye to the grounds that had become home. He knew he would be back in a week, but could tell it would feel like forever. He passed two of his subordinates on their way to the fire run. The tips of their bayonets glinted in the fading light. Lately the camp seemed to come to life as the rains finally began to cease, allowing the grounds to finally firm up. In the dimness of dusk the tents became blurs of grey spotted by lanterns. The rec tent seemed to always be lit now, the men gathered in their familiar groups, regular as clockwork. His games of Xenotime Spit had much to his surprise become a regular activity, though his conversation with the other boys always remained uncharacteristically formal and professional. Beneath the tent he saw Specialist Connely's shaggy brown head crouched over a bored. Three other men also participated. Their laughter was low and suspicious. Edward attempted to stride over to them with purpose.

"Evening," he started and four pairs of eyes met his with laughter.

"Major Elric! Look what Connely got from his brother!" One jeered with excitement. What was spread before them was certainly not any card game he had seen. Soft almond eyes peered up at him from the magazine, arched coyly over the girl's shoulder. She was almost entirely bare, save for the small piece of cloth draped down her slender back and pooling on her ample bottom. He noted briefly that she appeared to be exposing herself somewhere ludicrous like a field. Her breasts were entrancingly pert. His mouth was completely dry as he tried to channel his inner Roy.

"Specialist, such material should remain in your private quarters and definitely should not be being shown to your superior," he clipped. Edward swallowed hard as his fingers closed over the magazine, the woman's face crumbled under his fingers tips, the breasts that were soft to the touch in his mind became flimsy paper. "Next time, show a little discretion." He turned quickly, face on fire and feeling his blood rapidly pooling elsewhere. The magazine was quickly secreted away into the breast of his uniform as his hands shook with an unexpected energy that seemed to flood him like alchemy.

He clenched it so hard the paper tore as he sat on the edge of his bed. Their bedroom eyes looked back up at him while sweated beaded on his forehead and ran down his neck. An automail hand fumbled with his belt. His eyes kept darting anxiously from their breasts and their legs to the dim seam of the tent door and he groaned as he finally wrapped a warm gloved hand around himself, pulling hard. He imagined his lips on their flesh, tasting the salt and the slickness of their mouths. He'd never held someone like this in his arms, only his dreams. Like his dreams he could always feel a warm breath on his neck and a stroke of a heavy hand on his thigh. Even when the bastard wasn't there, he filled his thoughts.

He hid the magazine in his ruck, face flushed with shame at his lack of self control. He was sure Mustang would laugh at him if he knew, slinging an arm about his shoulders and grandiosely start into a dialogue about how babies are made and the meaning behind certain urges. Wiping the cooling sweat from his forehead, he stood and straightened his uniform and moved about the tent, preparing for sleep.

* * *

They moved slower than he would have liked, falling into single filed by rank. With the worst of the cold abated, Ed was more limber and his endurance had recovered. He kept a reckless distance ahead of the others, taking in the sights and sounds. Occasionally he would stop to study his map and compass. Beneath the trees the forest was dead. No undergrowth penetrated the moldering carpet of needles. He felt confident that if they had company he would know it by now. It was nothing like the dense, thorn filled brush that pocked the fields and fence lines of Rizembool.

On his map the lines and topography appeared uncertain, wavering around possible mountains to their East. Twenty miles north was the town of Odetta, West was Tesh. He sighed heavily. They were now five miles outside of camp and he wasn't sure where to go.

"Major?" A sergeant chimed hesitantly. Edward made a questioning noise as he slipped a worn notebook from his pocket. "What is your plan?"

"Keep your eyes and ears open while I work," he clipped, approaching the scaly bark of a pine tree. He scratched it before pressing his nose to the rough surface and inhaling. It smelled like butterscotch. This species of tree required a large amount of phosphorus in the soil, a useful mineral. He busied himself with coordinates and notes before they moved forward and slightly to the side of Odetta.

Truthfully, he had not learned much the first day. He was still surprised that past Brigg's Drachman territory turned into a gently rolling landscape with pockets of forest. He would even hesitantly call it beautiful.

They wound up setting up their camp before the swell of a gentle hill. It was only a slight walk till you could look over the steppes of Drachma, Odetta glistened faintly in the distance. He sat alone, using his alchemy to heat his rations. The sun was beginning to set, turning the pastel landscape a deceptively warm array of pinks, reds, and oranges. He breathed in the clean air deeply, letting it clear his mind. His eyes closed against his will. The war seemed far away and unreal. The images of shells whistling from the sky and Mustang's stuttered nightmares struggled for purchase. Things were ok. A smile snuck across his face.

* * *

He wasn't sure when he fell asleep. He woke with a start and a pair of puzzled grey eyes watching him. The specialist had been sent to retrieve him and clearly didn't know how to wake him safely. Everyone had heard stories of the Fullmetal, how he became a demon on the battlefield and would punch through your chest with his automail.

"Sir, everyone is looking for you," he murmured nervously. Edward forced himself to smile broadly, like he used to.

"Sorry, I'll be back in a bit. You can go back," He grinned, stretching slowly. He took his time getting up, pleased that here no one called reveille and he could take his time getting up after sleeping. He cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders, working out the kinks. He craned back his head, the Milky Way stretched above him. He felt a sudden pang of longing for Al. He didn't want to go back, and entertained the idea of disappearing, but knew he couldn't do it. Odetta shone brighter than before, with no moon in the sky the land was sunk into total darkness. With a heavy sigh he rose from his perch, admiring the peace there. Something caught his eye and he frowned. Points of light were moving in the darkness from Odetta. Slightly outside of it was what looks like a camp. He looked around, trying to triangulate it's position. He was sure that this was the information that Roy wanted.


	2. Recalling Winter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ed then did something he never hoped to do again. He walked back through The Gate again, and shut the doors squarely behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “We are little flames poorly sheltered by frail walls against the storm of dissolution and madness, in which we flicker and sometimes almost go out…we creep in upon ourselves and with big eyes stare into the night…and thus we wait for morning.” All Quiet on the Western Front

### Recalling WInter

Roy was certainly not a fan of the cold anymore than he was the rain. In fact, it took much deliberation before he had decided that he preferred the heat and expanses of sand of Ishbal to this endless bleakness. It was wet and unfamiliar, much like Edward in army blues. He had been standing awkwardly and alone, waiting for the train to Briggs. He pulled at the high collar, grimacing and teeth flashing as Alphonse attempted to placate him. The sight made his stomach turn. He had done his best to avoid this, to insist that Edward's research was too important to pull him to the frontlines. The Brass hadn't taken the bait, so Roy had done the only thing he could do. He insisted on taking Edward with him.

He hadn't been able to resist teasing the boy. It had been too good to be able to lighten the mood; to be able to drag his mind from what he was sure would be long months ahead. This time without Hughes to make the time go by faster. He was sure listening to Edward prattle on about alchemy that Roy would barely be able to grasp could only ease the morbidity of watching his face become thinner and thinner.

For the first few weeks, it had been hard to stay in a morbid mood. Edward's hysterics at having to share a tent had been enough to reduce Roy to a giggling fit on his cot. The boy had looked so incredulous and angry at Roy's laughter.

"What if I wanted to bring a girl back? I'm a growing boy after all?" Ed had shouted, indignant. Roy had not spent much of the day looking militaristic, snickering at every glance he had taken at his subordinate. But then, the days had gotten shorter and the winter deeper. Not even Hughes would have been able to persevere through such conditions. Edward developed a limp, causing his non-regulation braid to beat an irregular rhythm against his regulation blues. It was slow and shuffling, his right arm hanging heavy at his side.

* * *

The child's discomfort weighed heavy on his mind, and sometimes he had nightmares about the metal pulling ruthlessly against frostbitten flesh. During his few solitary hours alone in the tent, he would draw arrays in his journal, trying to develop some sort of portable heat-source for the boy to wear against his flesh until the worst had passed. All in all, any attempts to protect the boy had been worse than failure. Not even his most charming smile was able to secure extra rations for the growing alchemist and when orders came in for a drive forward and into the trenches he had more or less immediately excused himself from the meeting, to promptly be sick, the sounds of his heaving loud in the cold, dry air of the latrines.

And then the wisteria started to bloom and so did the bruises across the boys small frame. Fullmetal always slept late now, and his face had grown lean with a mixture of hunger and age. Seeing anything inside the tent was akin to looking through frosted glass, cold and pale. Time passed and the weather warmed. Ed's bruises deepened to the color of hyacinths and the fire in his eyes had cooled and sharpened. The nights he sat up and watched the boy, he could see where shadows of hair were starting to make their presence known.

* * *

Edward decided to move forward again, curiosity getting the better of him. They slipped between the patches of dark trees, this time sunken in the shadows, lights out, moving slowly in the night. He settled for the next gentle hill. It should be close enough for them to see what they assumed to be a temporary camp.

They sat for a few days, watching, taking notes. Edward found it mind numbing and did his best to avoid participating in surveillance. He contented himself with wandering the surrounding copses.

It was there that he found the gate. Or, so the dark, primal part of his mind told him, it's hair bristling and a cowl sweat forming on his neck. He had to remind himself that there was no whiteness here, only a high wrought iron fence surrounding the perimeter of some old property. The new growth of spring was climbing over old brown corpses that still clung to the posts.

His fingers closed shakily around the heavy iron handle and found his eyes tracing over the tree of knowledge, bursting into the sun, whatever "GOD" was. Inside the fence, the central building was just as elaborate despite it's stout and functional shape. The roofline was a matrix of masterful woodwork ranging from saw-toothed squares and seashells. The windows appeared to be framed with lace spreading out into dainty fans. The shutters were drawn in tight against the windows; the house slept with it's eyes shut. Ed imagined what it would've looked like in it's full painted splendor, but regardless it appeared to have held up well against the harsh Drachman winters.

An orchard stood in unnatural rows at the bottom of a gentle slope, small utility sheds crouched at random. He fixed on the barn with curiosity. There may be useful chemicals in there, worth commandeering. Excitedly his mind began putting together the prospects before him. There was better shelter available within the house for the camp than the thin tents, and as far as he knew they were equally safe distance from the enemy activity. But then he was at The Gate again. Why that design? Why here? The sleeping house called to him, what could possibly be inside.

Then Mustang was in his head. There was a war going on. It was getting dark out. Even Ed's recovered bravado whimpered at the thought of being alone in the dark without Al beside him. A group of birds stirred in the woods beside him, making him jump. He then did something he never hoped to do again. He walked back through The Gate again, and shut the doors squarely behind him.

* * *

The Cretan Flu was here. The men burned pine needles to keep the smell of sickness at bay. The thin, blue, smoke seemed to permeate the camp on days there was no breeze, creeping across the ground as a fog. The smell took Roy back to mountain survival training, with him and Hughes huddled around the small fire at night. Roy made the decision to not radio Edward and his team with the news. He was happy enough that the mission seemed to be going without any of Ed's usual flare. He had found an enemy camp moving out from Odetta and plotted an easy path for their weaponry to take to block off their supply. Edward would be back in two days.

* * *

He found himself working on his personal project during meetings, often startled when he was addressed over the radio by his superiors. Getting it to work was becoming more about the principle of the matter. He was a master alchemist and an adult. He was going to make this work. Lines encompassed the basic circle of fire transmutation, slowing the flow of energy and creating a slow, gentle, warmth, but it wouldn't stop. He was especially perturbed when they smoldered holes through his pockets, during inspection. It's difficult to maintain an expression of professionalism when your pants are on fire. He would never admit it, but Colonel Roy Mustang was losing his edge, and it was mostly if entirely Edward's fault. The boy was in his head.

In his lungs was the familiar stirring of his Trench Fever, and heavy in his breast pocket was his army flask, the rampant lion and star of Amestris etched on the front. It served as a nearly constant reminder of what nearly was during the long months following the Ishbalan conflict. These days he filled it with water.

* * *

At the back of his mind, somewhere behind his obsession, he was worried. The flu spread through the camp like wildfire and exhaustion etched its lines into the faces of his men. No one had died yet, but the sound of hacking was always audible beneath the buzz of the action camp. Roy adjusted the blankets around his shoulders, the cot squealing beneath him as he tried to get comfortable. He tried to focus on the hum of the stove and the chirping of the insects as circles with salamanders spread across the pages.

* * *

The soldier had died sometime in the night. The sickly blue tone of his skin stood out against the white of the morgue linens and the little blue stars of bruises spotted his skin. Dark blood was still crusting on his lips.

"I recommend we burn the bodies of the sick, sir." The doctor chimed from behind his mask. "I know you have a reputation for the bodies always making it home, but we have an epidemic on our hands." Roy's lips pressed into a thin line and his jaw worked as he watched the man on the table warily.

"Do as you need. Be prepared to speak tonight on the new protocols to prevent the spread." He turned, trying to put the whole ugly matter behind him, when a thought came to him.

"And do me a favor, Doctor. Try to take the bodies as far from the camp as possible before you cremate them." He didn't even wait for a response before rushing out into the twilight.

* * *

For the third day in a row, Roy was woken early. The Fullmetal Alchemist had returned and was ready for debriefing. He almost didn't recognize the Edward that stood at attention in the Officer's tent. His shoulders no longer seemed to sag from the effort of standing upright, and a certain insidious brightness had returned to his eyes. The time away from camp had treated Edward well.

He lightly tossed papers onto Roy's desk with a casualness he hadn't seen in months and rattled off coordinates and information with professional thoroughness.

"Is there anything else, Fullmetal?" he asked, putting the papers in order. Edward bit his lip.

"No, sir. Except that I would really like a shower right now."

* * *

Roy was surprised to find Ed already in the tent before him, legs and arms exposed by his tanktop and boxers and perched on the cot. His eyes were focused and downcast, staring at the fingers laced casually in his lap.

"Roy, there's something I need to tell you," he said quietly. A lump of hope and horror swelled in his throat. He hadn't felt like this since he was 16. His palms began to prickle and sweat. "I saw…something when I was out there."

Edward's eyes moved up, fixating on the wall. The breeze from a slowly building spring storm tugged at the edges of the tent. The part of Roy's mind that wasn't currently fixated on the small blonde on the bed noted that the tent itself was made of vulcanized rubber. Ed had created it as part of his alchemy exam last year. His strained mind began to wander and only came into focus when he heard two words.

"What?" Roy demanded sharply.

"I saw the gate, Roy!" Roy's mind went into hyperdrive; where, when, why, and above all, how? He barked out the questions.

"It was in the woods, near one of the camps. It opened into an old property. I think we could use it as a camp to get between their supply train and Odetta. Roy was silent, he was trying to pull too many strings into one solid thread.

"I want to go back. On my own."

"We'll talk about it, Fullmetal." His body began moving again, slowly, one muscle at a time. First, it was his fingers, reaching up to unhook his high military collar. Light was shed on that hollow of his throat. His feet shuffled him towards his own cot as the slicker slid from his shoulders, then the jacket. His lips moved wordlessly. The Gate. Yes, he knew the Gate.

It had stood, tall and heavy before him. He shuddered briefly as he remembered them swinging open, smooth and silent, and then everything went black. Edward watched him silently from his own bed, blonde hair spilling over his shoulders.

"So, let us start with the how. I thought the gate only opens when a human transmutation is performed," he sighs, having the feeling of someone struggling to tread water. Secrets and complications ceaselessly followed Edward like some perverse fanclub.

"I was away from the camp, going for a walk and found an open property surrounded by a fence. The main entrance was a perfect replica of the gate."

"But no one knows about that unless they've performed a human transmutation. You haven't seen any evidence of it in books, have you?"

"Only in discussions about the Ultimate Truth, or God." He said quietly. The silence was perforated by the start of rain on the roof of their tent. It smelled distinctly of the thaw and sweat of their uniforms. "I thought the stone was gone, asshole. Why is it here?" The bed sighed louder than Roy as he sat down, heavily, unlacing his boots.

"I don't know, Edward."

"I have to know who did it, Roy. Who else knows?" Roy looked up and met Edward's eyes. He looked away quickly, lying down to avoid his gaze.

"Hey, shithead! You better not be falling asleep on me!"

"We'll talk in the morning, Edward," he sighed. A low rumble shook the tent like a growl. The rain rose to a steady roar. Edward grumped and laid down as well. Roy pictured him staring up at the ceiling, arms folding behind his head. He stubbornly forced his eyes closed, welcoming the familiar presence.

Edward woke slowly, not with a start. Roy's lips were hot and firm on his neck, fingers prying at the waist of his pants. Roy groaned low in his ear and his hips rose to press firmly to his rear. The boy bit his own lips hard. Something that was certainly blasphemous made its way from between his teeth. This time, he didn't even try to pull away.

* * *

Edward already resented coming back. It seemed that a permanent haze had settled in. Once the sun set you couldn't see more than a few tents in front of you. The small, smoky fires spread throughout the camp made it into a red nightmarish, landscape. The next day at breakfast, he sought out Conelly and his friends. Seeing none of them, he made his way to the new Officer's Mess. He found his eyes persisting in slipping shut and he shuffled there, fatigued from a sleepless night. In the dark of the tent, Roy didn't seem to fare much better. His dark, shaded eyes looked puffy and bloodshot. He hunched over his watery coffee substitute possessively.

"Good morning, Colonel," he said curtly. Roy nodded at him. He sat down his rations heavily on the table. "It's weird. I could've sworn there were more people," he mumbled as he began to unwrap the box, examining it's contents for edibility.

"Ah," Roy voiced, biting at the corner of a biscuit. "Things have happened. You were gone for two weeks, Major Elric." He continued to keep his eyes downcast until he felt eyes on him. Edward was watching him steadily and curiously.

"We've engaged in battle and there's an epidemic in the trenches of the northern front. It reached us while you were gone," he ended the sentence with a dignified sip. Edward felt a familiar desire to punch Roy Mustang rise in his gut.

"Is there a strategic reason you decided to not tell your second in command this information?"

"It didn't seem necessary at the time, Major. I apologize." A silence spread between them and the sound of clearing throats and cutlery on trays.

"Whatever," Edward mumbled around his egg slurry.

"In regards to your previous request, due to it's sensitive nature, I feel it would be best if you were accompanied by myself." Edward choked and flushed. His mouth seemed to open slightly in opposition, but he silenced his protests.

"How're you going to swing that?"

"That's personal. Just leave it to me." They both took sudden interest in their food again, Roy coughing slightly.

* * *

Edward soon fell back into step, menial officer duties filling the smoggy hours between dusk and dawn. A week later, the subject still hadn't been broached. Occasionally Edward felt pressed to bring it up, like in the mornings where he woke to a pressure rising from the bed with a creak. He would try to rise with it but a gentle caress to his forehead would send him pitching back into sleep. He was finally also noticing more now, the persist coughing that echoed through the smog just like when the Trench Fever raged through it. He felt like he had just set foot back on an island he had only just escaped from.

* * *

A new call came in. A push was coming through for officers to begin learning basic Drachman. Many groaned at the meeting as packets were being handed out. Fate had found him seated unhappily next to Roy as a nervous Sergeant from Linguistics chattered in front of the congregation, occasionally pushing up her tiny glasses and pulling at her short black hair. She was Barbara Fitzimmons and Edward found himself briefly marveling at her resemblance to a more average Lieutenant Ross.

"So anyways, I thought I would just start everyone off with introductions," she giggled shyly.

"Меня зовут, Barbara. Now you say it," she encouraged. Beside him Roy murmured

"Меня зовут, Roy," Roy murmured reluctantly beside him. It took an hour before breaking pairs to practice. They were attempting a pleasant conversation about the weather but Edward found his clumsy lips fumbling with the guttering rounded language that seemed to pour off Roy's tongue.

"You bastard, you already know Drachman, don't you?" Edward hissed at Roy's pallid, shit eating grin.

"Да, немного. I'm not an expert," he laughed. Edward spent some time pressing Roy's knowledge of the language, fumbling through nonsensical sentences concocted from a dictionary.

" мы уезжаем, Major," Roy murmured casually. Edward struggled with the conjugation. We are leaving tomorrow. Edward frowned, briefly not understanding.

" Куда мы идем?" _Where are we going?_

" Возьми меня к воротам," Roy pushed. Edward frowned, trying to translate the last word. Roy waited patiently while he turned through the dictionary. Воротам, _the gate_.

"Когда мы оставим?" _When do we leave?_

" утром," Roy smirked, rising and dusting ash from his pants. _The morning…_

* * *

"Wake up, sleepyhead," Roy murmured as sleep left Edward's eyes. Edward groaned, sitting upright. A full ruck sat at the end of his cot and diesel engine rumbled outside.

"What time is it?" Edward mumbled, pulling the sheets tightly.

"Before reveille, the sun isn't even up yet," Roy murmured, his weight pulling away from the bed.

"C'mon, get dressed, the car is ready to go." In play, Roy threw Ed's red coat on top of him.

"Fine, I'm up."

* * *

The breaking twigs were loud as gunshots to Roy's already frazzled mind. Edward led the way and he watched his back with patience. The red clad shoulders in front of him had definitely grown broader in the past few months even and the golden braid now snaked down past his shoulder blades. He was silent, occasionally stopping to consult a map and compass. Roy would watch the trees while Edward walked. He didn't like the woods, it made him feel trapped and watched.

He walked more slowly this time, unable to shake the prickling sensation that crawled over his skin. Every now and the ten it would transform itself into stomach churning anxiety and he had to resist the urge to dark into the bushes and vomit.

Then the trees came into focus and he knew where he was. He forced his way through the wall of brush and the gate loomed before them again, heavy and ominous. Roy stood silent behind him, thin eyes narrowed. Slowly they moved again, taking in the complexity of the woodwork and the sprawl of the property.

"Can you feel that?" Ed murmured, lying his hands on the gate. Roy felt the tingle crawl up his neck and the circle each follicle of hair on his head.

"It's like alchemy," he murmured feeling the same familiar intrusion.

"But it's not. It's different," Ed whispered, running his hands over the metal. There was a click as his metal hand caught in the hollow eye of an infant. Cautiously his hands tugged at the handles and it opened soundlessly swinging open like magic. The energy stirred again, feeling like something restless, tossing and turning.

"You didn't mention this," Roy felt the need to whisper as if something would wake. His almond eyes slid over the trees, expecting shadows to slip from trunk to trunk. The last time he had felt this shaken by a place he'd been miles below Amestris.

Edward seemed blithe and cocky in comparison. He had no qualms about lifting himself to look into windows or cracking open doors that obviously hadn't moved in years. Roy watched as Ed murmured to himself, running fingers over boxes and buckets.

"Anything interesting?" He asked, taking stock of the room they were in. Dust had settled in for a permanent stay and was reluctant to move as he pulled a finger across a dark brown jar. The text was in Drachman and he fumbled with the syllables.

"Just lime and fertilizer, useful but ordinary. We should bring these back later."

"Later? You mean we have to come here again?" Roy frowned. Edward looked over at him. His eyes watered in the dim light of the small shed, dust swirling around him in a tunnel of light.

"You really think we're gonna be thorough going through his place once? You're so fucking lazy," Edward grinned. His eyes glanced around Roy to the label. "Nn, more peroxide," The colonel sulked silently as Edward continued his inventory. It was not often that Roy resented Ed's talent in everything did, but now was one of times.

* * *

He couldn't say why they saved the house for last, but they did, and once again Edward began searching the house with his hands. They roamed the door for traps while Roy checked the lower level windows for signs of alchemic protection. The thing that they had come to believe was paranoia stirred again. Roy felt it coil into a small ball in the pit of his stomach and settle there happily. Edward was the one who finally opened the door, hand clasping on the small brass knob and pushing aside the faded red wood.

The house opened itself with a sigh, old stale air rushing outwards. Ahead of them was a dark, narrow stairwell with the house spreading out to the left and right of them. It took several moments before either of them entered. Roy took the first hesitant step, his hand cupping the small of Edward's back and pushing him forwards into the dim room. The boy stumbled, metal foot falling heavily and causing the dust to jump.

Inside it smelt dry and soft, reminding Roy of his Grandmother's house, especially the way the sunlight took it's time coming down the stairway and spilling into the side rooms. Again, Edward went ahead, his fingernails pulling along the trim.

"Hey, Bastard, aren't these oil lamps?" He called, his voice cut through the heavy air. The Colonel eyed the sconces on the walls and reached up to gingerly pinch the wicks before smelling the oil on his fingers. He swiftly snapped his fingers on his other hand, in some attempt to regain his dignity. Edward sniffed haughtily. "I have matches you know, you smug bastard." Roy laughed and began lighting the other lamps.

* * *

Even having done work as a diplomat, Roy was still puzzled and fascinated by how similar and different foreign houses were. Whoever owned this house had obviously been wealthy, he knew that without recognizing the ancient Xerxian artwork and Xing vases. He stood entrance in front of one tableau that took up nearly an entire wall. It was an early form of alchemy that could be mistaken for artwork rather than science. Any treasure hunter or untrustworthy soldier could make a fortune here. Even now he knew he would never tell anyone about this place; too many liabilities, too much room for error.

He should've known Edward would find the library first. The young boy was framed by the light of the window, does cheddars turn like to let in the strong new light. The mysteries of the house left his mind is he enjoyed the familiarity of the boy's face lost in thought. The boy look his age that way, all the hard lines softened with concentration as his eyes narrowed into the pages of the book he scoured. Roy turned to make his own examination of the collection. All the books looked old, bound in leather with the title worked skillfully into the spine. The languages of the titles spanned several countries and he pulled one in Xingese from the shelf and moved to sit near Ed in the window. He was close enough to watch the breeze catch the loose golden pieces of Ed's hair.

"Colonel Bastard, what do you know about Astrology?"

"It's a pseudo science. Central shut down the research facility years ago."

"This journal is someone's research on astrological amplification of alchemy," he murmurs, turning pages, his eyes scanning diagrams and charts. "Sonofabitch has a fucking good code, too." Roy swore he could hear Ed salivating at the thought of a challenge. Opening his own book with a crackle, his eyes took in the familiar harsh characters of his childhood. On every page, there were contrasting diagrams, beautiful sweeping ellipses interlinking. He'd seen them adorning the walls of the house. He didn't know much about Xingese astrology except that he was supposed to be a metal dog, but Madame Christmas didn't put much stock in the ways of the mother country. She prefered the ways of Amestrians, she felt they were a practical people.

Suddenly, Edward startled, shifting and tensing. Roy looked up slightly, through his bangs. He coughed from an aggravatingly familiar tickle in his throat. It gave him flashbacks of lying in a cot in some field hospital, far from the trenches. Ed sat like that, frozen hunched but alert before finally speaking.

"Do you think, this is what we've been feeling?" He breathed.

"Don't be silly. I thought you were a man of science, Fullmetal," he prodded. Ed's lips pulled into a thin frown, before ducking back into the pages.

* * *

It wasn't until church bells came ringing through the woods that Roy was able to pull the boy from the house. Ed put up a vicious battle, snarling and bristling like a cat. Roy won in the end, removing the boy bodily, books clutched to his chest and all. The man did not escape unscathed, though. Per usual, the automail caught him by surprise and his back paid the price when he realize the boy weighed about a hundred pounds more than expected.

He was glad to be rid of the house. The tension that it created in his mind faded like sweat cooling on his skin as they trudged through the forest, back to their silent and solitary jeep. By the time they finally returned to the meadow Edward had last camped in, it began to rain. They had heard the rumble before the storm began. It was soft and filtered by the forest. Occasionally the blonde before him would stop, flicking open his watch, lips moving silently.

"We should hurry," he started.

"Why?" Edward looked up at flickers through the canopy.

"The edge of the storm is coming fast. It's going to be strong," he clipped, Ed's usual succinctness combined with his only recently developed stoicism. Without knowing why, Roy watched his hand reach out to rest on his subordinates shoulder, stopping him. He kissed the boy through brief, muffled curses. Up against the tree, the air grew heavy with the storm's moisture and their own sweat, and it smelled of lighting and butterscotch.

* * *

"I don't know how, but this is somehow your fault," Edward snarled at the older man. He was perched on the passenger side of the jeep, rain pelting the canvas roof aggressively. Roy's face was bland as his dark eyes rolled to meet the boys.

"While I appreciate your vote of confidence, Fullmetal. I really don't see how this is my fault."

"Well, it's your fault I'm in this stupid army and that I'm stuck in this stupid war," Edward snapped, flipping open the old journal sharply and pointedly. Roy's frown sharpened the gauntness of his cheekbones.

"This wasn't what I wanted, Edward," he almost whispered. The boy just turned a page pointedly. The older man looked out the window, the plants were blurred by the droplets on the glass. It reminded him of some paintings from Aerugo that Hawkeye had forced him to go see with her on one of their awkward dates following the war. Roy sighed as he tried to shift in the small vehicle, resting his knees on the wheel. He let his eyes slip shut with the sun, trying to sleep as they waited out the storm. The boy next to him proceeded to make all matter of annoying but familiar noises, sucking on and grinding his teeth as he read in the fading light. Roy lost himself in sleepless thoughts. Edward just tried to not think too hard.

* * *

The symbols and diagrams slowly slid into darkness and his head hurt from squinting into the shadows and there was a familiar ache in his flesh hand from gripping the pen too long. The code wasn't broken yet and the rain still poured outside. Hail had begun to strike the car, shaking the roof with it's percussion.

To his left, he could see the silhouette of Roy sleeping, chin having fallen to his chest, his frame rising and falling with each frail breath. He had a hard time reconciling this Roy here and the one that had not so long ago staggered through fire all blood, hard muscle, and rage. Earlier had had felt for himself how sunken this Roy had become, and it wasn't so long ago the man's breathing was punctuated with silence in his sleep. Edward thought he would die of fear when the man woke, fever-eyed and gasping in his sleep. He had run through the snow in the dead of winter night, barefoot and coatless to the med tent.

* * *

"He's dying!" He had cried until a nurse pulled him aside while the others went back to the tent to check on the Colonel. The Major made himself small and curled in a chair, icy cold even with the rough wool blanket around his shoulders. No one spoke to him, even as the man was carried wild and gasping inside, blue with bloodshot eyes that couldn't see.

This is how he must've looked to Roy so many years ago; small and sick, lying in the bed. Medics held down Roy's wrists and ankles as he fought the oxygen mask they pressed to his face.

"Calm down, Sir! Just breath!" one girl tried to coax through his fever. Others began packing snow around the mans feverish form, trying to cool him. Edward just wanted to vomit at the smell of sickness that followed him, even back to their tent. Not even the ice wind that seeped from the bottom of their door could purge the sticky sweat from his sleep.

* * *

An explosion, a flash, started him from his half-awake dream and the car rocked. In his head, people were screaming. Beside him he saw Roy awake, fingers at the ready and breath hissing, blessedly easy, through his teeth. There was silence, punctuated by a steady pattering on the canvas.

"The fuck was that?" Edward stuttered as Roy cracked open his door and peered onto the roof.

"Just a branch, Fullmetal. There're no monster's under the bed. Go back to sleep." Edward snorted.

"Easier said than done, Colonel Shithead."

"I know, just try." The man said with all the patience of a tired sick man, and closed his eyes once more, coat pulled tight around his body.

* * *

He crept the car slowly through the field as Edward cracked open the journal once more though the sun was barely up. The boy didn't even seem to know how much he had passed up. All those childish rights of passage; stealing your first beer, prom, your first date. Roy's stomach churned as he wondered if he had stolen the boy's first kiss as well.

The morning found them silent, still, and stiff-jointed. Mist coated the landscape before them. Roy felt alone above the clouds until Edward began to stir beside him, golden hair falling over his shoulders from coming loose during his violent sleep. The boy groaned and stretched out, arms above his head and spine popping loudly. Roy cleared this throat and looked away as the boy reached down to adjust himself in his pants.

"Nn, gotta take a piss," the boy mumbled, voice cracking ever so slightly with the rough edges of sleep. Ed opened the door, stirring the mist into little white snakes. He thought about the other day and how dangerous this whole stupid mess was becoming, but then he always remembered how it felt, to have something so feral and deadly melt so willingly into his arms. The blonde had fought it at first, and Roy had the bruises from where those automail fingers had closed around his upper arm, but Edward fought anything and everything. When that hand released to pull against his lower back though, it was like morphine. Every ache and pain left him and the boy kissed him back. They ground against the tree until the Colonel pulled away and brushed the bark away from the prodigy's hair.

* * *

The door was ripped open and Ed ducked slightly as he clambered into the car. Roy tried to uncurl himself, coughing slightly and cursing at the stiffness of his back, one of the many signs of his age slowly setting in. His feet found the pedals and he pressed them in slowly, flexing and warming himself up from sleep.

The boy next to him did the same, rolling his shoulders. If he listened closely he could hear the whirring of hydraulics and turning gears. Even the moistness of the leather and steel reached his nose above the mixture of exhaust and fog. Out here he could almost forget they were behind enemy lines; that he was driving them towards what he knew in the pit of his stomach would eventually be their death. Their forces were weak and scattered, resources limited. He could put on a brave face during meetings and debriefings and shift around supplies and men to alleviate the suffering of his soldiers, but the great Flame Alchemist could not win this war. Amestris could not win this war. Spring and summer were short in Drachma, they were running out of time.

* * *

Roy could smell the smoke from the pyres before they even saw the camp. Though Edward had spoken little during the drive, he could feel the boy tense next to him.

Patiently, he drove into his personal idea of hell, into the mud, the trenches, the sickness that he carried with him as a weight in his chest. The jeep bucked and revved in the thick mud surrounding the camp and Roy cursed loudly as the wheel tried to rip itself from his grip.

"Drive much?" Ed taunted snidely, having long ago put down his book to grip the dash and door for some sense of security. Roy growled and tried to bite his tongue from losing his temper. Occasionally though the bucking and thick spatters of muck, the spoils of war could be glimpsed. Drachman tradition didn't put much emphasis on corpses, so instead of being collected during the cease fires like the Ishbalans did during the uprising, they left their dead wherever they had fallen.

Often, under cover of night, the braver soldiers would bribe whoever was on patrol and sneak to the trenches to roll the bodies. Sometimes it was just for useful things, socks, jackets, food, and ammunition. But others collected trophies. Roy had to resist roasting a sergeant alive when a necklace of yellowed Drachman teeth had been found in his footlocker.

"Home, Sweet Home," Ed murmured bitterly, his grip on the car not loosening.

Their roll into the camp was uneventful, with soldiers milling about in the smog. They both sat silent, Roy transfixed by the steering wheel, Edward by the books he collected into his lap. Looking up, the shapes of the other vehicles in the makeshift lot were distorted by the beads of condensation already gathering on the windows from the humidity.

It took all the will Roy had to not slam the car in reverse and drive it till the tank went empty. At least in Ishbal you were hollow and soulless, he felt like his soul had turned into a festering sick mess like his lungs. He wished he could say the day progressed as usual but Edward had exited the car and walked away without even a word, leaving Roy to solemnly return the jeep to the fleet and stumble sleepily back to his office. There, on his ridiculously ornate desk, sat a bafflingly pristine pile of paperwork that made him look around nervously for Riza if she somehow magicked herself to the frontlines.

Realizing he was finally alone, he deadbolted his paper thin door and yawned carelessly while cracking his back. The chair was calling to him and gladly obliged it with his heavy body.

"Fuck," he murmured at nothing in particular, and cursed again as he lets his face fall finally to the desk in exasperation, jarring a stack. It shuffles it's contents to the damp floor.

"Fuck."

* * *

It didn't take long to sink back into the honeyed ritual of the camp. Wake, eat, paperwork, drills, eat, meetings, eat again, and finally sleep. It was monotonous as the seasons moved smoothly and swiftly into summer. At some point, Edward received a package, and Roy watched smugly as he opened it, perched on his cot with his legs neatly crossed in a muddied uniform, with his MRE box resting primly on his lap. His hands rested languidly in his lap as well, despite the anxiety fluttering in his stomach.

Edward tugged at the twine bow atop the neat brown package, and hurriedly unfurled the paper. His fingers traced around the simple maple box that shone with lacquer in the dim light coming through their open tent flap. Hesitantly, he opening it, and saw the gleam of polished steel and the dim ivory of a bristle brush.

"It's a proper razor for a young man," Roy beamed, taking a bite of a rock hard piece of bread. Edward ran a flesh finger down the handle, admiring the smoothness, and a slow reddening spread across the bridge of his nose and dotted his cheeks.

"I...thank you, Colonel bastard," he muttering, struggling to maintain dignity and nonchalance in the face of this unexpected generosity.

"When you don't have your nose in that book, you can shave without slitting your pretty little throat," he prodded. The immediate narrowing of the boy's eyes and hardening of his jaw caused smirk to grace Roy's own unshaven face. He snapped the lid shut and shoved it pointedly to the floor before turning back to his journal and meal sitting beside him on the bed, drawing up a leg to balance them throat. He had spent every waking moment like this since returning from that eerie dwelling in the forest, scribbling notes on any available scrap like a man possessed.

"Are you getting close?" Roy pried curiously, opening a letter from Hawkeye detailing the goings on in Central with one free hand.

"Very," Edward clipped, obviously still annoyed.

"Fullmetal?"

"Hm?"

"Is that a pimple?" Roy queried with incredulous amusement, not longer preoccupied with Riza's neat scrawl. His dark, tired eyes were instead focussed on the small blemish forming on the boy's cheek. A panicked look broke out across the Major's face.

"No, it's razor burn!" He sniped, raising a hand to cover it.

"Really? it looked like a zit to me. It's nothing to be ashamed of, you're just becoming even more a man." Edward grimaced, still holding his hand over the spot while Roy bent over, gingerly picking up the wooden box and placing it on Edward's moldering ruck sack. It wouldn't be long until the lovingly varnished box even succumbed to the moisture. Already, the silent killer crept up the sides of their tent in a powdery black and green blanket and into the rations of his men.

* * *

Alone in his office, Roy liked to build little altars to his failures. They were lined along the edge of his desk in neat little piles. One pile held body release forms for the remains to be sent home, most killed by the flu. Another were requests and denials for more rations, so he wouldn't have to tell his men to go hungry in the face of their already extreme hardships. He had never recalled paperwork being so grim. Being back in the valley, the same heavy heat of summer he and Edward had felt through a rainstorm settled heavily on the camp, bringing with it furious black storms of gnats that waiting to jump out at passing soldiers from moist shadows. Many men were reduced to running between buildings, opting to sit and sweat unmolested, and making using the bathroom and showering only matters of great urgency.

During the winter, nights had passed through brief, frozen moments of consciousness. Now it seemed to linger between the brackish air and ever rising chorus of frogs from hidden pools about the forest at night and the dawn chorus of dickie birds. The sleeplessness did nothing for the waning morale. When the fruit trees shed their petals in pink and white blizzards, Roy had lost count of the empty tents. He finally decided to put Edward on the task of breaking down the tents and burning them or soaking them in bleach for days. It left Roy more time to sit at his desk, wondering where he'd gone wrong and stare at the correspondence that came faithfully every two weeks. Hold your position. He felt like he was leading a tribe of lost and forgotten boys. The brass no longer contacted him over radio. There had been no inspection in two months and mail dwindled to a trickle. Finally, his worst fears were confirmed when the shelling started at dawn with a bang.


	3. Torn Apart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “It is very queer that the unhappiness of the world is so often brought on by small men.”  
> ― Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front

### Torn Apart

Edward startled awake, hair clinging desperately to the cooling sweat on his face. Roy slept heavily next to him as Ed attempted to calm his racing heart. His dry, pale tongue snuck out to test the moisture of his lips. There. He could taste the sulfur and his slowing heart began to race again. Smoke drifted to his nose as another dim flicker of light, like lightning, filled the tent, and a soft rumble followed. It was sharp and acrid, not the rich, fatty musk of cremation. A part of his mind prayed to unworshipped deities that this was just a nightmare within a nightmare, that this was just a warped expression of the traumatized mind. Roy jerked awake when the screams started.  
His feet sank quickly into his boots and he strode from the tent, uniform lank and haphazard around his body before Edward could even react. His fingers shook as he struggled to pull tight the laces of his boots before rushing to follow him into the thick of the camp. There was yelling and thick billows of smoke; charred fragments of what could be anything littered the ground. Roy's voice bellowed orders above the rest, but Ed could not hear them. His feet carried him forward, past the injured men that moaned on the ground.

* * *

The med tent was on fire. Ed could hear their choked screaming above everyone and he squelched towards it through the mud. Out of the darkness a bloody familiar face lurched towards him.  
"Major Elric! Major Elric!" Private Connely gripped his shoulders frantically, his brown eyes wide and white, the blood drained from his face. Edward's hands trembled in front of him, palms ready to snap together. The men in there would burn alive. He could think of nothing else, that most of them would die a slow death. Even if they survived the fire, none of them would be able to walk should they escape.  
"Oh, God, they're here! What do we do?" sobbed, Connely, frantic at his officer's indifferent gaze. What could he do? Drown them in earth and end their suffering now? The energy crackled between his waiting hands, potential and electric, until a slap across the face brought him back.  
"Fullmetal, we need to go," a cold voice ordered. The scrape of Mustang's glove drew a blush of blood on his cheek.  
"But, the others," Ed started.  
"I've rounded up as many as I can. We will look for others in the morning. Now we need to run. Go get our rucks. Meet me at the wood-line by the Officer's Tent."  
The camp had become disturbingly silent as Ed ran back, Connely stumbling behind him. His breath rang loudly in his ears alongside his heart beat. The rumbling of the mortar fire had stopped but it did nothing to ease his anxiety, reminding him only of the calm before a storm. His eyes flickered to every structure, vision murky in the sluggish lightening of the sky with daybreak.  
Connely clasped Mustang's ruck to his chest as they ran to the wood-line; Edward's own had been slung over his shoulders. Beneath the trees it was dark as night and the silence louder. The two men panted, lost. Edward hesitated to shout and Connely was even more confused.  
"Where are they?" He whispered, voice high with a frantic edge. A whistle came through the trees, and Edward ran towards it. Bird song mockingly began to fill the silence and Edward bit his lip to stop from screaming.

* * *

The day passed in flashes. Edward felt numbly obedient, stumbling along with the group as they marched. Roy had spoken little, walking sternly forwards while Edward brought up the rear. They were headed to the meadow where he and Roy had waited out the storm, reasoning that the clearing would make it easier for them to send and receive radio communication and it would be harder to be taken by surprise again.  
The humidity rose with the sun, dew beading on Edward's automail while the rest of his body sweat heavily, white undershirt clinging to his chest. Connely seemed to hang back with him, walking in time with the smaller man while six others doggedly followed their Colonel. A quick glance over showed that the head wound he had sustained earlier had finally stopped bleeding, but the blood had still congealed heavily on his face and neck. The sweat and blood stained the Private's shirt pink and his normally pale hair hung in dark, rusty clumps. Quietly, Edward whispered.  
"How are you feeling?" He felt foolish asking such an innocuous question. The other man was silent beside him, feet falling heavily on detritus and twigs and their dog tags beat out a gentle tattoo on their chests. For awhile, Edward thought the man would never answer.  
"All of my friends are dead," he murmured. "I saw them all get shot." He licked his lips as they both fell slightly back behind the rest of the survivors. "Major, are we really all that's left?" More thumping filled his ears as he tried to puzzle out the best way to answer. How would Roy answer?  
"The Colonel wants us to return to search tomorrow morning," he clipped, harder than he meant it. Ahead, he watched as a young man he could swear was related to Fuery stumble briefly under the weight of their hastily obtained radio. The antenna wavered almost comically as the other men worked to keep him on his feet. The brown-haired man fell silent, eyes lowering to the ground, passing over bits of leaves and mud blindly. What sort of comfort could he offer to someone who had just lost so much? He could think of little that could have comforted him and Al after that day.

* * *

At the field, Roy mercifully let them break for lunch instead of demanding that they set up camp immediately. Golden eyes watched as the older men made his rounds, talking to each of the men, learning what they saw and knew of the situation. Edward watched especially closely as he spoke to Connely, even pulling the young man aside and gingerly pouring water from his canteen over the stained brown hair. Skilled fingers parted the damp strands, searching for the wound. Edward realized that none of the medics had made it out with them. The burning stinking tent filled his eyes again. Suddenly hard tack and water seemed a lot less appetizing. Instead he preoccupied himself by watching ants crawl up and down the flower at his feet and swarm over the scattered crumbs of his lunch.

The respite was blessedly brief, and soon Mustang was assigning jobs, most important of which was to have the radio up and running before dusk. Grudgingly a sandy-haired man took the large, kite-like receiver and began roaming the field as the radio operator listened closely for the correct frequency to tune in on. Edward was apparently last on the list on the Colonel's concerns and it seemed like forever had passed before the man sat down heavily beside him, just now cracking open his own rations. The blonde watched as Roy cracked open a tin that claimed to contain corned beef and began scooping it out with a dense, stale cracker. The man ate with no apparent pleasure, and his eyes held the reserved thoughtfulness that Ed was more accustomed to seeing behind a desk.

"This is bad, isn't it, Colonel?" He finally choked out. Roy was in no hurry to answer, chewing thoroughly and swallowing. A second bite was halfway to his lips before he answered.

"Yes, Major, this is very bad. Fortunately, a few men had the foresight to secure a large quantity of radio equipment before retreating. However, we don't know how long our batteries will last. I expect that our camp will be too raided for us to be able to restock." The dark eyes were watching the tree line and Edward followed his gaze nervously. To his surprise there were small songbirds watching them, flitting from branch to branch flashing with reflective blue of their feathers. He could not say why, but Edward felt a comfortable and familiar rage begin to well in his lungs. "We are losing this war, Major. We are of the least concern to the brass." His eyes glanced at the young man standing next to him. "We're on our own." It was even more final as Roy took another bite of his rationed meal. Edward lost it, jumping up from his seat on one of the rocks that littered the meadow.

"Then why the fuck are you just sitting on your fucking ass watching some fucking birds? We're dying here! We just watched all of our friends fucking die and you're acting like nothing ever happened!" The tirade dragged on, and the blonde lost track of what he was saying, but in true Mustang fashion, the Colonel looked nonplussed. A few of the men briefly stopped to watch, looking up from their various chores. Edward was left standing, chest heaving as the Colonel contemplated the leftover end of his cracker.  
"You know, Fullmetal. The Drachman's believe that when one dies, the soul takes on the form of birds. It's traditional to offer meals to those found on the battlefield," Roy smile slightly as the creatures contemplated him from their low branches. Casually, he tossed his remaining crackers, and watched with satisfaction as they flitted down and pecked at the wafers. He stands, running gloved fingers through his dark hair and down the front of his unbuttoned uniform. "Come, Major. There's a lot of work to be done."

* * *

At the first gasps of dawn, Roy sent two of the men to investigate the camp, blatantly ignoring the plain disdain on Edward's face. The tension became palpable as they disappeared into the forest, wide green backs sifting into the shadows. Sunrise didn't do anything to soothe the nerves of the survivors. The radio was still painfully silent and the heat soon beat down on them, driving them to the fringes for shade, taking turns in the radio tent and carrying around the antennae. Edward stayed away from them as much as he could, especially Connely's uneasy smiling. No one talked about what happened, which was the only saving grace of the situation.  
Edward meanwhile sought refuge in the crotch a large sprawling oak, opposite the field. The now much more worn leather book sprawling across his increasingly threadbare lap, he sat, puzzling over codes and scrawling in a very tattered notebook. Occasionally, sounds spilling from the surrounding woods would startle him from his contemplations and his gold eyes sharply search the underbrush. Across the field he watched as an enterprising private gathered the rare small, dry stick to act as kindling for the surprisingly cold night ahead.

From here, Edward could almost swear that the field belonged to Risembool, and the tent of burning and screaming men seemed ever farther away than last night. The field filled with monkshood lured him to calmness reminding him of a night many years ago. It was one of the few memories he still had of Hoenheim, seated on the edge of Ed's bed as he read to him and Al and old Amestrian fairytale about a girl in a red cloak being deceived by a wolf who had followed her through fields rather similar to these. Al had turned his face into the pillow and began to cry his golden eyes out as his father described the woodsman, having following the girl while gathering wood to the cottage, cutting open the wolf and filling him with stones. Al didn't like seeing anyone hurt, even then. Edward had only learned that men with weapons ruled the world.  
A dark-haired figure waded the tall grasses towards him, Roy stripped down to his white undershirt which clung to his thin frame with humidity.

"I don't recall saying this was a holiday, Fullmetal," he said disapprovingly.

"I'm working," the young man replied, calmly scrawling something, connecting the dots. The Colonel was silent below him, shielding his eyes against the light filtering green through the trees.

"As important as that may seem to you, there's too much more to be done. Come help us sort the supplies. We're only staying on more night before we pack up and move on," Roy said almost mockingly gently. Edward didn't look at him, only leveling his gaze ahead, tracing the rough patterns on the bark. "Fullmetal," he said again coaxingly, feeling like he was trying to sooth a cat back down out of a tree.

"Mn," the younger man made a sound of acknowledgment, distracted as little links began connecting in his mind, flipping back several pages, double checking a diagram. Roy stood patiently below the tree, looking casual and ragged in a sweat-soaked t-shirt and uniform pants. Ed's lips pressed into a thin line, brow furrowed.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming," he muttered, slamming the book shut with a sort of malice.  
Edward was already prone to hating menial chores. Despite his love of organization, the actual process of sorting and filing was more what Al would find pleasurable. Roy, Ed, and another private with shaggy black hair eerily similar to Roy's, were on their knees in the shade, sorting through several moldy packs. First aid in one pile, clothes and survival gear in another, food in a last and depressingly meager stack.

The blonde curiously picked up a flint striker, turning the shiny metal over in his hands before pulling the hammer and watching sparks spit out the end. He tossed it casually to the side, quickly bored. Roy was silent as he looked over everything and he quietly began to do the math, ticking off the days until they began to run out of supplies. His eyes fell to Edward who had developed a sullen expression as he dug and sorted. His automail arm glinted in the bright sun, white shirt hanging off his lanky frame. Ash smeared the young man's golden skin, and his hair was barely held in his trademark braid, fraying around him in a haphazard halo. Roy suspected he didn't look much better.  
"We should get the tents up unless we want to be eaten alive again," Roy declared, bare hands slapping the dirty legs of his uniform. The welts still itched all over his arms from where he had sprawled in the field the previous night. He was speculating how to diplomatically divvy up the housing, but was surprised to see them begin to pair off. Last night was still fresh in their minds and they didn't want to be alone. The young alchemist wandered off with his own lumpy bundle, not keen on sharing. Away from everyone else he laid the tent on the ground and assembled it with alchemy, the other watching discreetly between sheets of cloth and posts. With a sigh, the older man pressed his fingers to his temples, trying to alleviate the pressure there, and set about assembling his own quarters.

The other did not return until after dusk and their faces were grim in the low firelight. The Colonel had been correct in his assumptions that the camp would be ransacked for all available supplies, and their packs were empty. Their voices were soft outside of Ed's tent, Roy's low urgent tones punctuating their mild voices.

"There may be others like us," one said, strangely hopeful. "I heard something on our way back. It didn't sound like an animal."

"Yeah, it was probably a Drachman following us back," someone else chimed derisively. They agreed amongst themselves before fading away into the nocturnal sounds of crickets and the gentle thud of insects against his tent. Ed saw their shadows shifting and huddling.

"We will leave in the morning, and find a more secure location." He clipped, sending them away to find tents. Grass crackled under their heavy, tired boots. Ed tried again to sleep as the countries equivalent to silence settled in once more.

Every time he closed his eyes, circles flashed before them as the secrets of the journal slowly unfolded, the stars shifting and connecting. He wished more than anything that Al was there, but he was happy knowing that he was safe in Risembool. In his last letter he mentioned meeting some pretty young thing in town. He pictured them going to the summer fair together and sharing ice cream, her green eyes flashing with happiness. He tried to remember their summers together, running on the banks of the Rain River.

A rock formed in the pit of his stomach at the strange disconnect he felt. How could he ever have been that boy? His past wasn't his own anymore. He wondered if Roy felt the same. The man in his photos and the man than stood stony and sweaty outside were so different he couldn't believe they had ever occupied the same body. It was like their lives had been blocked in by brackets. Wearied from his mind running in circles, his body began to relax into sleep, where he knew the war would also follow.

* * *

Edward startled awake, stifling his own gasp, too fearful the breath. Flickers of light illuminated the damp walls of his tent. Quivers of bass followed, sending bolts of anxiety through his body. No panicked shouts or smells of smoke wafted through, and he finally allowed himself a shuddering exhalation. He shifted to a seated position, listening closely. He could hear no other sounds of stirring outside his canvas quarters aside from the contented singing of frogs and insects from a nearby wetland. He was the only one awakened by the distant storm.

In basic, he didn't recall the pup-tents being so small, or having to hunch his body to sit within them. Even curled upon himself, he could feel his head grazing the fabric. With a grimace, he peeled his sodden shirt from his skin with a damp sucking sound. He couldn't tell if the sweat cooling on his skin was more from fear or the stifling air within the tent. Regardless, the claustrophobia was starting to get the better of him, and he slipped from his tent as silently as possible, weaving amongst the few other shelters standing in the shelter of the trees.

At the tree line he curled his bare toes in the mossy soil with pleasure, letting his childhood flow over him for a fraction of a second. He was happy to see the storm clouds did not appear to be any immediate threat, the towering structures distant inkblots devoid of stars. Sometimes, brief flashes filled the clouds with fire. He stood there for his own eternity, chewing his lip in contemplation and enjoying brief snatches of breeze that carried petrichor across the valleys. This Drachma seemed a totally different reality than that of the road, or even the cold spring or sweltering days. If it weren't for the very real risk of being sniped down if he left the trees, he could easily let himself relax into memories of Amestris, of those many nights camping with Alphonse.

Absently, he scratched an automail finger against the tree he leaned on, scraping it down to the green, pulpy xylem and releasing the sugary smell of butterscotch. Unconsciously, he tipped back his head to take in the scent and his eyes take in the whole of the sky. It was late, far closer to dawn than to dusk, the Milky Way still arching over the sky. Across the land below them, he could make out the silver ripple of water that came to curl at the base of their hill. When he an Al had been trapped on Izumi's island, and unable to sleep because of the then unnamed monster, they would tend to their traps, instead of lying idle. He shifted anxiously from foot to foot as he played the idea out in his mind. It would maybe be 100 yards to the water, and it might be even farther to an eddy deep enough for fish. That distance was plenty far to be dangerous alone. He struggled to recall how long they had been there now. No Drachman had crackled across their radio and there had been no signs of search parties. In fact, it seemed they were the only people left alive on the planet. 

They were also starving, he'd seen the pained clench of Roy's fist when other men asked for more rations and he had stonily refused. Yesterday, Edward himself had a trio who had been muttering mutinously scattering in terror. He had barely been able to control the rage that had swept over him when they accused the general of eating the food himself. If anything, the man had stopped eating, his usually round face more gaunt than ever. Ed suspected he himself was receiving more than his fair share; Roy knowing the drain on the body that automail creates.

Stilling his breath he gazed across the field, listening intently for any breaking branches. He contemplated going back to find his jacket to hide the shine of his metal arm in the dark but settled with pulling the limb farther into the sleeve. His flesh hand rechecked the gun at his hip, something he had started carrying at Mustang's insistence, and began to walk the tree line cautiously, all senses searching for signs of water.

On his walk down there, he found several signs of small animal trails, deeply traveled. Unable to resist the chance of bringing back fatty meat he set traps. The rope had been laughably simple to alchemize from the cellulose of saplings and grass. When stranded on Izumi's island, Ed and Al's main energy expenditure had been braiding and rubbing rope. It was almost enjoyable using these skills again, and he caught himself grinning with satisfaction as he laid long grass over one noose, perfectly masking it. Though he had done plenty already, he was still thrumming with energy and the night was still falling even darker as the stars sunk lower in the sky. A secret pleasure surged through him, knowing this was act of flagrant disobedience, and he smirked at the thought of Roy going red in the face as he yelled. It felt good, normal; like he was once more a snot-nosed brat and Roy his superior officer, yammering on about military regulation.

“What the fuck? You gonna write me up for pissing in a non-regulation stance next?” He had snarled, slapping his automail hand on the desk. The ridge of his palm had still been visible at the time of their deployment. Roy had leaned in close, breathlessly threatening, their noses nearly touching. The shock on the then boys face at the blatant intrusion was something he would forever deny.

“If the military develops a standard for when, where, and how to take a shit, I damn well expect you to follow it,” he snarled in return. The baritone of his voice dropped one more menacing octave. Part of his mind, then and now, danced with delight at Mustang's crudeness, but it had also been frightening, startling him into uncharacteristic obedience.

* * *

Through the trees he could see a broad glimmer of water, and hear the rush if he sat still and quiet. His approach was cautious, racing heart pulsing in his throat. Once on the bank he would be completely exposed and there was always a change that he would not be the only one entertaining a nocturnal reconnaissance. But no strange shadows moved on the rocky banks, nor were there any glimmers from the opposing trees. The only sound was the wind picking up, rattling the trees as the breeze funneled into the little valley.

The water before him was black; gently swirling eddies reflecting on the surface. He could only guess at its depth, but it looked more ideal for swimming or casual fishing. The gentle bow of the river wasn't right for what he had in mind. Just downstream he found what he wanted, where the river narrowed to a brook, peppered by larger rocks. He chose to refrain from alchemy, the bright crackling of energy to obvious in the dead of darkness. Instead he contented himself with collecting sticks before shucking his boots and rolling up the legs of his pants.

It was bracing, making his jaw clench and spine tingle as he waded in a short ways. It was shallow, barely cresting his ankles, but it felt like ice. Distantly, he realized that this river was probably fed by mountain snow melt. Once he had shuffled cautiously to his chosen location, two large rocks forming a natural channel in the deeper water at the center, he began to drive in the sticks like a fence, forming a V that fed and narrowed the mouth. The easy part done, he shuffled to the other side of his trap.

It was hard to see, but his flesh foot could feel a natural depression from the rushing water, but it would still need to be deepened to hold any lured fish. He brace himself, and grimaced at the ugly necessities of survival before plunging in both arms to scoop away the mud and sand. He bit back a yelp, his flesh arm prickling and numb, the steel one chilled and sending shocks of pain to his port that reminded his horribly of winter. He hurried, but the sky was beginning to lighten faintly by the time he had finished. His work was efficient, broken only by the occasional startled glance into the dark woods, at the sound of breaking branches. No other sounds or voices carried, so he merely shrugged it off, carrying on building up the edges. Finally, he dug in his pockets with numb and trembling fingers for bits of hard tac and pemmican that he had been unable to stomach, and sacrificed it as bait to the nearly still waters of the fish trap.

Shivering and with his ports throbbing he waded back to shore, where the sharp rocks added insult to injury, his flesh foot tingling and discolored from its long submersion. He allowed himself the pleasure of flopping to the ground, a bit fatigued from his work and not overly thrilled at the prospect of a long walk back. Idly he gazed at his feet and was startled to see a noticeable difference in the length between the two. Perhaps an inch or more. Curious he held out his arms and saw the disparity. No wonder he'd been tripping lately. He entertained the thought of punching his automail toes straight through the general's teeth as payback for laughing at him. He had only begun to bemoan the difficulties of such good fortune as a growth spurt when the loud snapping of twigs startled him to stillness. Slowly, he reached for his boot, stuffing it onto his flesh foot as more crunching steps followed in the familiar rhythm of footsteps. They were close and right by his seated position on the bank. There was no chance of fleeing, they would certainly see his movement or hear if he ran for the woods. Trembling, he fumbling with the thrice damned laces, cold fingers still uncooperative as the stomping became nauseatingly loud, and his empty stomach churned bile.

Then, rather anticlimactically, a very disheveled Roy Mustang lurched from the trees. Edward almost wanted to laugh with relief and amusement at the man's appearance. He had never seen him so uncollected, even when half dead in the medical tent. The white undershirt was blatantly stained to a point that would make any respectable soldier weep. Between the noticeable shadow of a beard, disheveled hair, and ever yellowing pit stains, he had the distinct air of a lay about. The general blinked as his eyes adjusted. When those dark, narrow eyes settled on him, he realized that he was in more danger than if Drachman's had found him.

“You insubordinate little brat!” He hissed eerily loud above the rising breeze and charged towards the blonde with enough fury that he began to stagger to his feet. The staggering quickly turned to frantic scurrying when Mustang managed to land a successful punch across Fullmetal's cheek that dropped him. Any illusion of weakness that the young solider had about his commanding officer dissipated along with the stars that sparkled across his vision. The cursing continued as Edward pulled himself to his feet once more, bare automail foot unsteady on the rocky shore, trying to brace himself.

“Do you have any idea what could have happened?!” What were supposed to be screams were restrained to hisses, but the full effect was made in his dark eyes that smoldered and the shaking of his clenched fists. “If you  
were caught! If anyone else saw you leave!” Somewhere, distantly, Edward understood, but his cheek was still throbbing, the pain radiating through his neck and head. He really wanted a fair shot back. So he took it. 

His flesh hand successfully returned the favor on the General's opposing cheek and the man stumbled backwards, not wasting a second to lunge back at his subordinate. The force of it sent them rolling, both trying to land blows in the heat of the moment, but all of them lacked force and focus. Roy pinned Edward's legs and forced him onto his back.

“I was just trying to fucking help! We're fucking starving you stupid bastard!” It came out more a shout than he meant. The General's eyes narrowed further, upper lip curling to a snarl. Ed was pleased to see a fine trickle of blood coming from that perfect nose, and the corner of his split lip. Roy slapped him. It was hard and sharp, snapping his head to the side, and made him see stars again. 

“There is more to our situation than you, Fullmetal. Do you have any idea what everyone would say if they caught you sneaking off in the middle of the night?!” His voice rose against his will. “They already suspect me of sabotage! If you are accused of being a spy, I cannot protect you! They will kill both of us!” Edward stared at the river, in a daze, worried for a moment that something had been knocked loose in his mind. Strong arms yanked at the front of his shirt, forcing him partially upright. He let his head tip back though, staring at the sky. The older man was silent, angry breaths hissing between his teeth as he waited for a response. The stars. The arrays. His eyes went wide as he took it all in. Roy's arm relaxed some at the man's continued silence.

“Edward?” He breathed, letting the boy rest fully on the ground, but not moving from the safe position straddling his hips.

“Roy,” Edward whispered, his face lit with the thrill of understanding. “I know what those arrays do; I know what it all means.  
Roy’s panting anger faded quietly to apprehension, his fists unfurling from the smaller man’s equally filthy shirt.

“What?” His arms relaxed, lowering the deceptively heavy body till it laid flat, his own arms now hanging limp by his sides.

“You won’t believe it, it’s so absurd,” he says with a wondering whisper, as if his brain had yet to make sense of the idea. “He wants to use stars,” he sniggered with a hint of hysteria. HIs smirk towards Roy was fractured and wet. Roy kept cool and distant.  
“What do you mean?”

“It's an alchemic amplifier! The moron wants to use planetary forces here on earth!” He burst out laughing and choking. Again, Roy was still and silent. From Ed’s hysterics, this was no joke, there was something plausible here. It could be the final day all over again, and Roy’s stomach dropped down through Ed's straddled hips and straight into the bedrock beneath them.

The blonde continued to alternately laugh and cry, bringing stiff and trembling hands to rub at his eyes,

“Fullmetal, collect yourself,” he said it harsh and clipped like when Nina’s entrails decorated an otherwise unremarkable East City alley. The bruise blossoming on the boy’s cheek, that he himself had planted there, made his usual mask hard to muster. The sobbing quieted further and the young man’s dewy, golden eyes blinked up at him. Roy felt the corner of his own mouth falter briefly. The sun was now high enough he could feel the warmth on his back. The danger of their situation increased in increments of golden, rosy light, and whatever ethical war the blonde alchemist was waging in his heart, it needed to be set aside in favor of the real one at hand.

“Listen, we need to get back before everyone is awake,” he hissed, seizing the still frigid hands of his subordinate. “On your feet.” He slid off and to his feet, tugging the other man to do the same.

Briefly, the Colonel thanked whatever unknown eavesdropping powers that be that he uncharacteristically allowed the remaining men to sleep late. He couldn’t offer them food, but they could rest to their hearts content.

“Major, you know the way back?: He snipped, voice carefully controlled to imply that there was only one correct answer and that it was more an order, less a question. He swallow all feeling that struggled to his lips as the shorter man started a bleary eyed salute before snapping the hand to his side.

“Yes, Sir,” his voice cracked, and Mustang’s heart broke along with it. He turned sharply, high ponytail a glinting banner, better than any blaze or trail of bread crumbs, body slipping with deceptively easy silence back into the trees.

* * *

Contrary to popular belief Roy had no hand in how the young Major elided standard military short cut. The blonde had been sent into battle, tresses intact out of sheer petulance and tantrum throwing alone. Watching it bob, weave, and snap like a live wire with the motions of its owner, he contemplated persuading the boy into a trim. As it flicked more, tempting and within reach, he smothered the suggestion that it would be more for Roy’s own safety than Ed’s.

Fullmetal’s pace was unflagging and seemed guided by some inner compass that his superior officer was not lucky enough to possess. Roy though, did not mind. There was a meager measure of pleasure in surveying his back, noting that it held no trace of the child he knew not so long ago. The shoulders were broad, back straight, and stride smooth and confident, even with the microscopic impediment created by the automail. The years had molded all that energy and talent into a confident adult without dulling the keen edge of wit that sparkled in that remarkable mind.

Suddenly, the golden head whipped to the side, snapping that seductive fall of hair from Roy’s reach, the man’s own travel stopped by the cold blockade of an artificial arm. 

“I want to check my traps,” Fullmetal murmured. Roy’s brain faltered briefly before catching up to the rest of the world. Before he opened his mouth in blatant opposition, Edward was already smoothing it over, like Roy was merely some agitated cat in need of stroking. 

“It’s obvious we’re never going to make it before someone is up. Cross is probably already up and stoking a fire for his coffee,” he said, upper lip curling into a facsimile of disgust. What Cross had concocted from a variety of native leaves could hardly be considered coffee, let alone fit for human consumption. “So we may as well check my traps. I highly doubt anyone will ask questions if we come back with fresh meat,” he reasoned, smile brilliant and enragingly triumphant. The dark-haired alchemist tried not to feel undermined and diligently held in place the mask he had fumbled onto his face. Needing no more evidence of his victory than the silence, he stepped carefully from the tree line. He crouched, sometimes using his hands to balance as he sidled over to the tall grass. With an unreadable expression, the short alchemist surveyed the ground when, in a flash, he plunged the metal arm up to his heavily scarred shoulder into the grass.

A shrill, unearthly noise emanated and he reflexively reached to cover his offended ears as Edward, like some twisted magician, withdrew a rabbit. As soon as he got over his shock he began to fret the commotion, but Edward quickly silenced it with one quick, innocuous flick of his automail wrist. The dusky legs automatically stopped kicking and Edward reached back into the grass to blindly reset whatever mechanism was hidden there, finally sidling back over to Roy. He beamed like a child, holding his prize catch by the long hind legs; the head swayed pendulously, and a bit too loosely, between the tiny front paws. The Colonel chose to maintain his silent bemusement, content that he had at least avoided eating crow tonight. Or so he hoped.

* * *

In total, Edward’s traps yielded two more rabbits, all of them fattened by spring and dusky brown with salt and pepper like their fallen brothers. All we as well, similarly dispatched in the same casual manner that took Roy by surprise. Edward’s success had left the young man outright jovial, their earlier altercation and his revelation pushed far from the front of his mind. Roy and his stomach could not deny the prospect of a hot and relatively filling meal was heartening. He even agreed to carry some of their bounty as the blonde, quietly, waxed poetic about the arcane uses of rabbit organs.

“And you can even blow up the bladder. It’s like a little balloon! Did they teach you that in survival training?” Roy gritted his teeth some, biting back the, Of course, Edward at paced at the back of his throat. “That’s what Al and I used to do! We’d make up little games or throw them at each other. If you can get one from a deer I bet you can carry water in it.” He prattled. In addition to his alchemy, intelligence, fight ability, and growing good looks, he also had the most enviably astounding capacity for compartmentalization.

When the smell of wood smoke reached their noses they stopped again. Or rather, Roy stopped and gave in to temptation, reaching out and giving that blonde tail an enthusiastic tug. Edward stopped sharply and emitted a muffled, indignant, squawk. 

“I don’t particularly want to be hit by friendly fire, do you?” Roy whispered, the barest hint of a smirk returned. The taller alchemist cupped his gloved hands about his mouth and whistled. It was the same lyrical whistle from the night of the raid, and it was answered clumsily but promptly. Ed rolled his shoulders to shrug off the memory of the burning hospital. 

As Edward predicted, their return was unquestioned and Ed’s trapping success generated much excitement. Gutting and cleaning the rabbits was swift, cheerfully aided by another young man, raised in a small town just south of Risembool. Being so lauded by his brother’s-in-arms seemed to breathe new warmth into the young man. His normally stilted speech and stiff shoulders were relaxed and he smiled freely. Rather than intrude in the moment, or tarnish Ed’s now sterling reputation with his presence, Roy chose to make himself unobtrusively useful, collecting wood and stoking the fire for their early morning feast.

* * *

Nightfall found the air reasonably cooled driving Roy to sit, prodding morosely at the darkened coals of the campfire. All of his men had long since retired to their tents, and a chorus of snores mingled with the usual crickets and frogs. He had been sitting there for some time, waiting for Edward to return as promised. The cool damp ground made his body ache, and left him shifting frequently to find comfort. 

Left to its own devises, his mind skipped gleefully from thought to thought; from irritation at the man's tardiness, curiosity and anticipation regarding the contents of the journal. Finally, it dabbled briefly on panic that something was wrong, but was quashed by the only slightly more welcome memory of the young blonde's firm stomach beneath his hips. He jumped slightly as a heavy weight dropped to the ground next to him with a sigh. Beside him, Edward had a thin eyebrow quirked in question and the barest hint of smirk.

“I scare you? What you thinking about so hard?” He jibed. Neither of them spoke aloud about the very real danger of such carelessness.

“I think about many things, Fullmetal,” he drawled, returning to briefly unleash his aggressions on the crumbling coal. He liked the way the dark shell would break apart into dozens of fire bright fragments before cooling back to black. “Especially when I'm left waiting by dawdling officers,” he bemoaned, giving the young blonde a very pointed look of exasperation. 

“It's not like you have anything better to do,” Edward retorted casually, brushing his loose hair back over his shoulder with a sweep of silver.

“I could be curled up sleeping,” Roy pressed. His subordinate merely snorted his derision.

“Whatever. We both know you don't sleep at night.” Roy had no answer and sat silent, gloved hands folded in his lap eyes forward and reflecting the starry hotspots of embers. Edward was silent as well, somewhat surprised that the man conceded so easily to the ribbing without retort. If he was truthful, he did not sleep much himself. In his dreams, a trail of blood dripped from his silver fingertips everywhere he walked. It clotted in the wires of his automail and gummed up the joints. Then Winry, beautiful and precious Winry, had tried to help. She unscrewed the plates and shrieked, finding shreds of still living and bleeding flesh trapped within the mechanisms. He always woke then, shivering and damp no matter the weather. He bit a guilty lip and also stared into the mostly dead pit of embers, unwilling to meet the eyes of his commander. 

“Fullmetal, are you going to tell me anything or are we going to continue to sit here like fools, wasting perfectly good nightmare time?” Roy finally sighed. There was no use dwelling on insults. If his nightmares weren't filled with bloody sand and sniper fire, it would be snow and explosives. Instead of an answer, he heard the shuffling of pages and saw Edward flipping through the journal.

“I don't understand everything, yet,” he started quietly. “But the heart of it all centers around the actual force that powers transmutation itself. Honestly, my physics is a bit weak, so I'm just piecing it together as I go.” Roy nodded his understanding. Physics was still a young science, branching out to answer the many “why” questions that alchemy only answered with “because.” 

“Basically, he says that an alchemic reaction isn't so much limited in scale by the skill of the wielder, but by the energy available. That energetic availability is where the physics comes in. It can all be altered by electrical and magnetic fields and your physical proximity to poles of the planet. He goes into some really elementary stuff about the conductivity of the material alchemized can also vary energy requirements, but I think every alchemist on the planet knows transmuting gases is a piece of cake compared to solid stuff.” 

A glance confirmed Roy's suspicions that the boy was wearing an evil leer, waiting for a response to the covert insult. 

“Go on, “he said, nodding encouragement. Edward did, masking his disappointment at the lack of a retort. 

“His research was interested in finding a way to amplify the power of available energy, or even how to increase the power available. Y'know, like the military tried to do with the watches?”

“Are you going to get to the point, Fullmetal or are you going to give me a refresher of my entire education?” He snipped, frustration mingling with the looming knowledge that something bad would come of this.

“Shut your fat, fucking face, and I will!” Edward hissed, trying to control his volume with tents so close. “He had a few really minor successes. Interesting but not worth noticing, at least until he pulled astronomy into the mix. I have no idea how, but he found out cosmic positioning can magnify the size of a reaction to insane levels,” he whispered with fever-eyed excitement Roy had seen in blood-lusting soldiers.

“How insane?”

“Fucking countries, Mustang. Like with Father,” Edward let that sentence speak volumes for itself. “He even talks about alchemic changes no one has ever considered before. Destabilizing isotopes, changing the force of fucking gravity. Even the basic state changes we know like temperature and pressure he talks about using on a massive scale!” The hands that Roy had worked so hard to keep still in his lap were beginning to shake. He hid it by flicking his fingers, raising tiny sparks at his fingertips. “His pet project seemed to big finding out how to employ an increase of gravity and pressure as a weapon. Ultimately the combination would crush everyone within the field and the sudden compression would create a devastating shockwave of heat,” Edward trailed on.

“Did he work with anyone else?” Roy cut in, fixing the young man with a hard stare. 

“No. He died with his name in ruins. Everyone thought he was insane. The government never answered his letters.” Roy let out the slightest sigh of relief. “I think it was his ranting about the Truth and the Gate that did him in. He was obsessed with seeing it again,” Edward said, swallowing heavily. Roy could feel the involuntary shiver run through the young man sitting next to him. “Besides, only someone who can activate arrays without drawing them could ever use them the way he wanted. With that many variables it's nowhere as simple as what Father used.”

“I see,” Roy replied, knowing it was entirely insufficient. The silence they continued to sit in was not companionable as much as it was resigned. Roy turned to gaze out where, were it light enough, he would be able to see the formidable mountains that housed Brigg's. It was many, many days travel from their location and through miles of lowland occupied by soldiers and civilians alike.  
“Fullmetal, I think it’s time I be honest with you,” Roy said, barely a whisper. Edward remained disturbingly quiet and taut next to him, his warmth moving only minutely closer. “We aren’t going to make it out of here alive.”

* * *

There was no explosion, none of the cosmos shaking outrage. The young man merely still, flesh and metal fingers laced as he leaned forward with elbows on knees. Roy watched, waiting. But still there was nothing and the fire popped; shooting embers in the air that briefly lit the young man’s blank face and deadened eyes. “Fullmetal?” He whispered, cautious. Then Edward stood, and nodded once, slightly, and walked to his tent without another word. It cut Roy so deep he could feel the pain in the fabric of his very being.

Edward woke to a heavy weight pressing down on him and rough gloves cupping the gentle bow of his back. Roy’s dry lips pressed to his urgently. The darkness was a canvas in Edward’s mind, trying to piece together Roy’s face from the fragments of touch and the rustling of cloth. His hands rose to meet Roy’s back in return, steel hand slipping in a mixture of sweat in condensation. His flesh hand found the swell of his thigh and pulled it closer so he straddled his own narrow hips. Roy’s hands found his hair, tangling in the dull, matted locks as he pressed their hips together frantically.

“Roy,” the smaller man moaned as quietly as possible. The man in the darkness answered with a questioning series of kisses that trailed down the beautiful, pale neck the shone for him in the shadows. “Are we going to die?” Alphonse and ice cream flashed to the front of his mind before being banished by a hand reaching below the dirt smeared canvas of his pants.

“Shh,” Mustang hushed even as his body tensed. A tender kiss was pressed quickly to his subordinates forehead with a ghosting of ragged black bangs. In the panting silence, Edward licked the drips of saltwater from his lips.

* * *

The young alchemist woke again in the embrace of a phantom, damp with sweat and an uncomfortable stickiness spreading across his thighs and groin. He swallowed heavily at the memory of Roy’s dark, wet eyes reflecting the weak light above him. Outside men were stirring and the birds began to rise into their dawn chorus. Mist enveloped them in grey, muffling their voices like snow. Roy was standing guard by the rations as one Sergeant divvied out the meager portions, a map spread out before him, dotted with little circles and arching lines. Edward felt like the map, worn, flat and grey. 

The blonde stood in line, scuffing his feet and shuffling sticks into shapes. The confused and disappointed look on his face at share caused the meek salt and pepper haired Sergeant to murmur an apology.

“The Colonel wouldn’t let anyone go to the traps this morning.”

“What the hell, Mustang? How am I supposed to function on this?” the young man snarled in a whisper, his stomach growling with him. His golden eyes narrowed like furious sunsets at the contents filling his kit. Lonely on the dented tin was a single pickled sausage, garnished with biscuit of tac and three crackers.  
Roy was silent, eyes on the map, tracing the mountains and Ed’s scribbled notes of topography. Greedily, his fingers pulled apart the meat, nails snapping into the casing with a crack. He snapped a corner off the tac with his automail, rolling it around in his mouth, feeling the starches dissolve into gritty bits.

The Colonel’s hand moved suddenly, disappearing into the breast pocket for the beaten flask, followed by a swift swallow. His voice was low and conspiratory.

“The nearest camp is 60 miles away,” he murmured, placing a shaking finger on the map. Sharp eyes noticed the trembling in Roy’s thighs that travelled up his body. It could be anything from hunger to exhaustion.

“That’s not too bad,” Ed muttered between bites. “We could be there in a week.”

“Yes, but the last contact I received from the brass was two weeks ago. They could be anywhere. The war could be over and we wouldn’t know it,” Roy breathed, gusting Edward’s bangs in the chilled humid air. Visions of those eyes like pools of oil and muffled explosions swam in his head like fish. He looked up, locking gazes before jerking away, anger threatening to boil over. He took it out on the ground as he stomped away through the mist, and kicking angrily at the smoky wisps and tall grass of the field that housed their radio kit. They needed to try again, to know for sure.

* * *

The radio tech was already seated at his post, head nodding slightly, glasses slipping from his nose. 

“Getting anything this morning?” He asked, peering over the drooping shoulder at the contraption. The Specialist shook his head slowly, dwarfed almost comically by the military issue headphones. Edward frowned, touching the mans shoulder gently.

“You feel alright?” Specialist Mesas was usually quick with a smile, especially for the Major who visited often. The bowed head shook again, and watery fever red eyes met his. The familiarity of the glazed look and blood tinged spittle in the corner of Mesas mouth hit him like a nightmare. Without even realizing it, a scream for Roy had torn from his throat and his legs blindly followed.

* * *

Special Mesas died that night, sobbing and gurgling up pink froth in his delirium. At breakfast mess Mustang announced his untimely passing to silence and downcast eyes. Everyone already knew, but routine and formality were important. He also announced that their departure would be delayed for 24 hours but barring any change in circumstances they would The man had to be buried, and out of a sense of duty the Colonel led a slightly slurred ceremony in the meadow. Edward stared numbly at the radio tent as the Mustang stumbled through a painfully short eulogy, swaying minutely where he stood. Afterwards everyone hovered outside the innocuous green tent, not wanting to touch the pale body. Lividity set in as they argued. Parts of the boy were already a sickly purple by the time Edward snatched one of the shovels Roy had transmuted and flung aside the flaps of the tent, dragging the body out on the rough woolen sheet.

“You get his feet,” he barked at Connelly, who, red-faced, fumbled to get a grip. As they awkwardly shuffled the young specialist out to the woods, Ed heard the snap and felt the brief surge of warmth as the tent was burned. 

It had been so long since the battle that Edward had forgotten the weight of death. The board of a body rocked between him and Connelly and they both had to stop themselves from holding their breath out of fear of infection.

“This should be far enough,” the other young man gasped, releasing his end of the sheet. The body hit the ground with a thud muffled by the leaves. And wordlessly they both set about to digging. The soft dark soil of Drachma scattered itself across their shoulders as it was flung through the air. They both ignored the tracks of mud that carved their cheeks when they worked.

* * *

The next day started with the usual early morning disorientation and the nauseating feeling that it had been a week instead of a few days since he saw the massacre. Wordlessly, they rolled up their tents and stuffed their rucks near to bursting with one less man. The blonde went to break down the radio tent and found himself staring down at the heavy, metal lifeline. Though intimidating, he found himself finding many of the knobs and dials familiar, similar to the radios that Alphonse had so fallen in love with during his convalescence.

It was incredibly heavy on his back, and for a second his flesh leg quivered while he found his footing. Roy said nothing about it as he debriefed them all on their plan of travel. As they walked, Edward resisted the urge to count their footsteps and the days ahead. Roy was a silent leader walking ahead, withered inside his uniform in a way that filled Edward with a nauseating fear.

* * *

By evening they had made it to the flatlands of the valley. With caution they continued forward, past shelled out bridges, ghost villages, field that served as cemeteries for livestock, human, and plant alike. Nobody spoke, and they shuffled like ghost in military formation. It was only finally one they had made it to the safety of the trees, ascending the craggy slope of the mountains that the General waved his hand, and they set up camp. Without even asking, Roy was sure to assemble the Major's tent as he battled with his unofficial demotion to communications.

Evening chill crept slowly up from the forest for through his hips as he sat, staring down the radio. He found himself finding many of the knobs and dials familiar, similar to the radios that Alphonse had so fallen in love with during his convalescence. I traced his fingers along the worn face of the kit. Were there any lingering traces of disease crawling on the surface, in the wiring, the headset? Despite signs of Roy's earlier best intentions, would this demotion be the death of him? Resigned, he sighed and turn the device and began cranking the generator. He knew that their low altitude and heavy tree cover meant the chances of retrieving any signal was slim, but it was better than doing nothing.

He had spent more than an hour scanning through channels occupied by shrill whistles and static. He lingered on the channels with the screamers longer than any other, hoping for a possible break in the signal jam. By the time Roy's heavy hand descended on his shoulder, he was starting to hear things. Adrenaline jolted through his system and his whole body tensed, but the hand on his shoulder remained still and unthreatening. His shaking hands fumbled with the headset.

"Fucking hell, Mustang. You know not to do that!" He let the cool metal of the headphones pull on the back of his neck, the cracking leather cups resting on his chest. The gloved fingers slid up to the exposed skin of his neck. Insects carried through the unfamiliar silence, almost masking the other man's noisy breathing. It had been that way ever since the sickness.

"My apologies, Major. I tried talking to you but you couldn't hear me." The voice lowered to his level and he could hear the shifting of leaves as the man crouched behind him. His weight pressed at the young alchemist's back and the welcome heat flooded his body, and fatigued followed shortly.

"What time is it?" He whispered. The hand slid forward, tracing the hollow of his throat and cupping his jaw. Gentle pressure made him tip back his head and moist heat brushed his ear.

"Long past time for you to sleep," was his whispered answer along with a gentle kiss at the junction of shoulder and neck. Edward shivered slightly in fear picturing those microbes creeping through Mustang's body. In a near delirium he was gently guided to Mustang's tent and he was too tired to protest the appropriateness. The heavier body kept away the cold. He dreamt of Mustang cold and still, body blotched by pooling blood.


	4. The Decision

Chapter 22

* * *

For a week and a half they marched, their pace slowed by fatigue. At the end of the first week the rations had long since been depleted. They made due by raiding orchards and family gardens. Edward didn't think he'd be disappointed if he never saw an apple again in his life, even if it was in a pie. Their team learned quickly that the quickest way to make yourself ill enough to wish you were dead, more than usual at least, was to gorge on unripened apples and raw potatoes. Edward did the best he could when the opportunity to trap presented itself and dabbled a bit in food alchemy. One evening he managed something that looked impressively like a bland flatbread, but tasted like dirt and grass. Still, that had sent them to sleep with full bellies.

* * *

"You're certain these coordinates are correct, Sergeant?" Roy clipped when all they found was a clearing for all their exhausted slogging. The sun was beginning to sink behind the distant pine ridged peaks they'd emerged from and the surprisingly cool air nipped at their lips and frosted their breath. Edward furiously studied his map, turning in circles and occasionally reaching to scratch at his scraggly beginnings of a beard with rough automail nails. One last furious frown and sequence of scowling at the map and then the sky, then he rolled up the map with care before striding forward into the field.

"I'm certain," he spit, toeing at the long grass, parting the gentle waves of green before crouching and picking up debris. It was a cigarette carton, soggy but intact and the brand issued by the Amestrian military. He tossed it casually at his commanding officer who caught it with a grimace of disgust. "I'm positive," he chirped with false humor. "At least the good news is that there should be a proper latrine dug out here somewhere. The grass has already had a chance to stand back up after they left. They must've bugged out shortly after we were raided." He frowned a little at the thought and once again combed at his beard.

Roy remained silent and the other men began to shuffle awkwardly, a couple stepped away from the group and began unrolling their rucks for the night. With the slowness of building tumbling, the men began to file away to prepare for the night, leaving their leader lost in his thoughts. Ed took it upon himself to take the man by the elbow and guide him away from the group.

The treeline he ferreted them in broke up their pink tinged shadows into abstract shapes that made Ed dizzy. Sharp edges of light highlighting Roy's jaw, but obscuring his eyes. The muddied blue of his chest hued purple and sickly warm.

"I don't like this at all, Fullmetal," he whispered. Somewhere across the field was a wild whoop of success. The last camp had left behind their stack of firewood. Ed stood silent, his arms feeling heavy and useless by his sides. He began to studiously study his boots, puzzling over the worn and cracking leather as Roy breathed deeply.

"It's only another week to the next outpost," he murmured, nervously tapping his fingertips to his thumbs, bobbing onto the balls of his feet.

"Do you really think we could make it that long? Let alone, do you really think they'd be willing to follow me across another 60 miles of Drachman wilderness with winter breathing down our necks?" Roy snapped. The metal fingers stopped their tapping and clenched into fists, the wind sampled the backs of their necks.

"Don't sentence us to death yet," Ed hissed. "Let's at least try the radio tomorrow, if there was a long term camp here then there must be a signal in range." He walked the line between fury and pleading, A shifting of cloth told Ed that the Colonel had nodded, stiffly. Hesitantly, the blond reached out and tenderly took a roughly gloved hand and stepped forward to press his face to Roy's ever thinning chest. With an embrace he was surrounded by the taller alchemist, drowning in the smell of pine sap and smoke. A part of his mind that he desperately tried to silence mourned that he would never know the scent and taste of Roy fresh out of a shower or the luxury of rolling in the sheets of his luxurious bed.

* * *

Roy and Ed were the first to rise, the sun just barely slipping over the mountains and the grass heavy with frost. With considerable jostling and some teamwork they managed to maneuver the radio, which appeared to gain weight at the same rate everyone else was losing it, to the highest point of their field. There they crouched, enveloped as best they could be into the always expanding enclosure of Roy's great coat, while Edward fidgeted with the knobs. His fingers trembled in the early cold and the Colonel's breath was warm on the back of his neck, but he eventually made it past the squelch and blessedly beautiful Amestrian words crackled through the air.

* * *

They didn't speak about what they heard. Merely listened, to the static garble that answered many questions and inspired just as many. Together they collapsed the antennae, and hoisted the mammoth electronic onto Edward's shaking shoulders. They walked, or rather Edward at this point shuffled while Roy's palm was a warm and comforting presence in that small of his back when the fine tremors were under control.

In total silence they put away the gear before any of the other men had fully woken slipping over to stoke the fire. In lieu of coffee or tea they had taken to boiling pine needles. The hot, bittersweet fluid enough to buoy spirits and lend a sense of normalcy. After the morning meal, the day proceeded as usually as their days could. The tents were broke down, the fire banked. Two enlisted took the map and between them and Edward's disturbing knack for topography they charted a course and began to walk.

The tense silence stretched the ranks, skipping between Roy's newly hobbled walk mimicking ed's own off tempo shuffle. The two seasons of extremes had hastened the corrosion and ed viciously guarded his automail oil like it was gold. Roy could blame nothing more sinister than age and uncomfortable bedding, though Edward's half warmth softened the throbbing of his joints to a duller ache.

Their path followed the canyon carved between the two ridges that dominated the landscape. It was late enough int the season that flash flooding was less of a concern and it would be less taxing. They didn't speak when they broke for a lunch. One soldier passing around apples just short of ripeness and they dried their mouths and burned the chapped creases of their lips. No one spoke at all, passing anxious glances between their two officers. One sandy haired man, once baby-faced but now hollow. They gray sky was beginning to seep into the very heart of them and gnaw their bones, grappling with their hearts behind the fencing of their ribs.

* * *

The silent tension unfurled in the evening as Ed laid out their bedrolls, when fingers much longer than his own curled around his wrist and tugged.

"Come with me," Roy husked and the blond snarled his retort of fuck off. Silence and a persistent gentle tug.

"I. Said. No." He could feel the grit grind between his teeth alongside the words.

"Don't be childish," Roy hissed, grip brooking no argument and Ed stood slow and stubborn, joint creaking threateningly.

Finding shadows among the trees to slide into was as easy as sliding into and old skin, and Roy grasped both their hands between his thin, work darkened hands.

"What is there to even talk about?" Ed snarled and the general swore for a second he saw a glimpse of the old insubordinate smirk.

"Edward," he hesitated a breath. "We cannot tell them, not yet," he exhaled, sliding a hand up into the young man's tangled hair.

"Can't tell them what?" Ed's voice pitched up on the edge of hysteria. "Can't tell them that Amestris has been invaded? That they're almost to Central? That their families might be dead? That seems pretty important to share to me, Roy!"

"Then what? Then what do we have left?" He hissed in retaliation eyes locked and heavy. The shadows played sharp games with the features of their faces, silence drawing taut. "What we have now is a facsimile of loyalty and compliance, Major. All they have left is hope that there is safety out there somewhere and that there is a family waiting." Unbidden came Riza's soft smile over the rim of a steaming mug of coffee.

"And what do you propose, Colonel?" Edward hissed with equal measures of venom and menace as Roy's grip on his wrist steadily loosened, and his head drooped their foreheads pressing together. The long gloved digits in Edward's hair tensed with Roy's breath and he steadied himself.

"I propose that we make go down fighting, and that we take those bastards with us," Roy whispered with a hitch as he banished the visions of his maple desk spattered with red, of Central burning, of familiar eyes gone empty. Edward puzzled in silence, coin gold eyes narrowing and reflecting light. His cracked, pink lips part.

"No," he hisses.

"Edward, do you think you can work that array?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is woefully short. I'm mostly posting as proof that I am in fact still alive, still writing, and that this story WILL be finished. Life has been giving me a buy one get one free deal on lemons for the past year and...it has been difficult to say the least. This story and Apoptosis both are my baby. I wish I had more to offer you at this point, but have a cliffhanger/plot twist!


	5. Chapter 5

I'm so sorry that y'all are expecting an update from this post.

I'm a decent way through writing the last chapter, so it is coming!

This last year has been absolutely insane and I apologize profusely for the lack of updates. I've only recent left my abusive ex-husband and finally gotten a promotion from my job. I'm only about 2,000 words in but I wanna give y'all /something good! I adore your review and they give me strength. Thank you so much for your comments and for sticking with me so far.


	6. Counting Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unbetaed. I apologize for the shortness of the chapter but I was beginning to feel guilty holding out on y'all. One more chapter now. Thank you so much y'all for the love and support. I adore your comments, kudos, and bookmarks.

* * *

 

 

The silence was heavy, Edward panting softly as his eyes widened before his face drew back into a grimace, he let out a high and fearful keen between ragged inhalations. Roy quickly did his best to smother the cry by pulling the smaller man to his chest. Between the heaving cries he could hear the sobbing of “Al, Al, Al.” If it was possible he curled his fingers tighter into the course snare of his hair. He inhaled a deep shudder himself, biting his lip and worrying the flesh there. His eyes pressed together enough he wouldn't cry. Ed grieved enough for the both of them.

 

* * *

  

They went to sleep separate and wake twined together.

 

* * *

 

They passed the morning in the same numb silence. The water was boiled, pine needles steeped, tannin tinted water choked down with hard tac that was gritty in their dry mouths. Edward's face was puffy and sore with crying. Nobody touched the radio and no questions asked when it was broken apart and used for firewood at their next encampment.

 

* * *

 

It was Edward who came to Roy first, a cold metal hand at the crux of his arm, sliding down to tug at the end of his glove before wrapping their fingers together.  
“Two weeks,” he whispers, head down, face shadowed by unkempt hair. Roy hummed an affirmative, bending his chapped lips to that golden crown.

 

* * *

 

Two days from that, Edward approached him at dawn, while the others were still wiping sleep from his eyes. Clutched in the flesh fist was a bundle of flowers.

  
“Fullmetal, while I appreciate the gesture, this isn't quite the time for romantic overtures,” he teased. Edward returned the jab with a half-hearted smile, but it quickly fell back into it's usual solemnity. Roy squinted, and looked at the flowers more closely, the long stalks peppered with white, star-shaped blooms, and ice crept up his throat.

“No.”

“Roy,” Edward started.

“I said no,” Roy snapped, chest heaving, stomach roiling and mind racing.  Edward allowed him a few minutes of silence. Roy paced and panted, running shaking hands through his hair.

  
“Roy, you know it's the right thing,” he said quietly.

“How can you say that?” Roy spat. Edward help his gaze, level and calm in a way that turned his stomach at the suggestion.

“They're starving! They're going to die anyway! Why not let them go now?!” Edward hissed, visibly bristling as his voice rose. Roy's face froze, going even more wan. Edward watched his jaw work, the tic beginning in the corner of his left eye. The silence stretched thin and brittle while the shorter man watched him with coin-colored eyes.

“It will be a kindness. They'll fall asleep. Without them it'll be easier to move and ration food.” Roy's jaw clenched one more time and he swallowed before tipping his head back to stare at the cloudless, pinking sky through the trees.

“Tonight.”

 

* * *

 

Edward made their pine tea for the evening, sprinkled the little white blooms and crushed leaves liberally in the bubbling water. Everyone drank it contentedly while their eyes fell to half-mast, some wrinkling their noses at the unexpected bitterness. The following morning was a different sort of silence. Roy set fire to the tents and they never looked back.

 

* * *

 

Moving was easier with only two people, their steps more silent and they were able to listen for others without stilling 10 pairs of feet. Their path was more certain, towards the heart of Drachma, back towards the house filled with arrays.

  
They could move during daylight now, leaving nights for Edward to feverishly chart the moon and the stars. Roy listened in silence to the furious scribbling, quiet curses, and the occasional tearing of paper. He had never dreamt of a day where the night sky would feel so sinister.

No matter how late Edward stayed awake working, when he woke the younger man would be curled against his side and Roy's face would be covered in his lank blond hair that somehow never smelled filthy.  
Beneath the copper of Ed's eyes was becoming blotched with the color of storms and the clouds grew darker everyday. Sometimes, when he was sure he would never wake, he would reach out and  
press the tips of his fingers to them. He only wished that his lips would be tolerated.

 

* * *

 

Their walk took on a certain eeriness as they began to backtrack their previous path. Some days they managed to stumble upon the ashy circles of past campfires, but they never stayed there prefering to shield themselves in the trees. Whenever they were near a meadow he would sometimes startle awake by a vicious rattle in his chest, desperate for air, and find Edward staring across damp fields filled with the sparkling of fireflies. Once Roy rose to join him, pausing to spit the blood streaked pus that he could always taste on the back of his tongue. He reached out gingerly resting a hand on a lean hip, the other sweeping aside the snarled braid so he could press cracked lips to the nape of his neck. In the distance lighting lit the clouds and the mountains.

“It looks like Risembool,” the younger man whispered, shifting an automail hand to rest over his own.

 

* * *

 

Two days before the final night they lay on the forest floor, picking at their increasingly spartan rations with distaste. The constant damp had worked it's way into their boots, and Edward suffered the most. He attempted to hide it from Roy but his gait took on a different hobble from the rot between his toes.

The rabbit jerky Edward had made several days earlier had not dried quite fully and was beginning to taste rank. At this point it was beginning to feel pointless to try to seek out something better. His idle mind wandered and drifted to the rich foods of his childhood, and his mouth watered and his stomach clenched viciously with longing.

“What will you miss most?” The words were thick and uncomfortable as they stumbled across his tongue and he had to resist spitting to clear the taste out. The pine needles crackled as he shifted, trying to find a comfortable position without roots stabbing into his back.  Ed was silent for a moment, staring at a fixed point on the tree above him. Then he snorted, sharp and heavy, shaking his head slightly.

“Nothing I haven't missed for a long time now.” His words were equally thick. “It doesn't even seem real anymore,” he murmured in a rough whisper. Roy made a noise of agreement. These memories seemed like a dream, the life of a stranger who shared his face. He tipped his head to the side, to catch the young man's profile like he had so many times in the past. Instead, those amber eyes limned with storms met his as the bristling forest floor pressed against his cheek. His expression was so sad, so severe and full of questions.

“I'll miss you,” he whispered in reply to the unspoken question, and marveled at the transformation of Edward's face as his brow and nose crinkled and eyes filled with tears and clenched themselves shut.

 


	7. The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's done. It's finally over. Tags not included above are listed at the bottom as they are spoilery. Thank you for following me on this strange and long journey. The next chapter is just a bunch of poetry I wound up writing while working on this piece.
> 
> Again, thank you.

* * *

 

 

They found the house in it's tiny glen once more, late in the afternoon and bizarrely felt lost. There was no more walking to be done, no more construction of shelters. All that needed to be done in preparation was the re drawing of the large faded around that took the entire floor of the foyer. They both stood there, staring down at, the motes of slight illluminating the tiny eddies of dust. Roy heard Edward swallow heavily and lick his dry lips. In the dim, dusty room he could feel that dark place, like after Ishbal, creeping up from the ground. He was an empty well filling with poison, and bodies bobbed in the black liquid. He could see that darkness filling Edward too.

 

* * *

 

“We should find dinner. We'll need all the strength we can have for tomorrow,” Ed mumbled, before turning on his heel and marching out the door. Roy made himself useful and went to stumble through the underbrush, while he saw Edward bring in armfuls off wood from the scanty pile beside the house. It didn't take long before he was able to return with two rabbits and a small quail, all of them smoldering lightly and devoid of fur and feathers. Edward was seated next to the empty hearth, loaded with the partially molded wood and what appeared to be smashed furniture. Beside him was a clay pot filled with colorful blooms that Roy recognized as edible, as well as a large tin pot already suspended over the fire fuel. Roy lit the fire happily as Edward cleaned and broke down his catch.

 

* * *

 

 

They picked and pried at the boiled flesh until their hands and chins, and some of their clothes were greasy and Ed let the water boil away till all that remained was a thin, viscous layer of fat that they poured over the blooms as a crude dressing. They ate until their bellies were swollen and taut. Without a word they both began to search for a bedroom then crashed heavily down onto the mattress of dry straw, sending clouds of dust into the air that burned their eyes and made them choke.

 

* * *

 

 

Tomorrow the moon would be at apogee, furthest from the Earth and gravitational pull at it's weakest. It' would be the perfect time to work their alchemy and have the greatest effect. The already heavy silence between them was becoming more taught, as if somebody was pulling back the hammer of a pistol in slow motion. Roy shuddered at how easily it was to feel the phantom muzzle of a gun at his temple and taste gritty gunpowder. He was perfectly content to wallow in resignation.

Ed was on the opposite end of the spectrum, his whole frame trembling with manic energy, teeth grinding and jaw clenching. The Colonel did his best to try and sooth away the tension in Ed's shoulders with gentle presses of his hands, and the now permanent furrow in his brow with presses of lips.

 

* * *

 

 

Occasionally Ed would tip his head up with a whine, and they would share gentle, languid things, that ended tasting of salty wetness that trailed from Edward's eyes. They were so used to each other's sour taste to even notice it anymore. Even the sharp bite of unwashed bodies was familiar and comforting. To Roy it was less stale sweat and dirt and more like Ed undiluted and he savored it pressing his face to that lovely juncture of his neck and metal shoulder. He kissed the scars too, trailing wet kisses over the rough tissue and even lingering on gritty automail. Then the blond inhaled sharply and shuddered, roll off of Roy and onto his back, throwing an arm over his bruised eyes.

A stuttered breath later, peppered with insect hums and dripping water, and the arm slid to the side.

“I'm scared,” he whispered.

 Ed could hear Roy shifting, rustling the straw of the mattress, to lean over him. There was another gentle press of lips to his, rough with thick, patchy, stubble, then a cool, callused hand cupping his cheek.

“Me too.” Against his hand he could feel Ed pulling a grimace.

“Your breath reeks,” he grumbled and Roy couldn't resist a snicker before he kissed him again, straddling the narrow hips and running both hands beneath the filthy shirt to roam the valleys of ribs.

 

* * *

 

 

That night he dreamt of birds and reapers. An army of tall cloaked figures sweeping swaths of grass, and dark birds rising from the fallen blades.

 

* * *

 

 

Roy woke dry and comfortable for the first time in months.

 

* * *

 

 

Downstairs he found Edward fiddling with the ash in the fireplace, scooping a handful into the pot that held the dregs of fat from their rabbit. A clap and flare of light and he turned to Roy with a small smile.

“I made soap. How does a bath sound?”

 

* * *

 

The weather was offensive in it's cheerfulness, bright and warm with the hint of breeze. Together they walked to the small stream that bordered the property. If Edward took his hand, Roy didn't say anything about it. Just squeezed back.

 

* * *

 

 

The water was bitterly cold, and the soap harsh and sub par, but they scrubbed themselves till their skin squeaked clean. They paused waist deep in the stream, staring at their filthy clothes, then drug them into the water and scrubbed them vigorously, slapping them against the rocks to free the filth. The weather was warm enough that they laid their clothes on the rocks till they dried and they stretched out bedside them. Briefly, Roy indulged in the thoughts of a future. That they could have this, that they could hide here. Then the poison crept in again, and the bodies of their squad watched them accusingly and the ashes of the Capital filled his lungs. He rolled over and held Edward tighter, sneezing when his clean, frizzy hair tickled his nose. Ed continued to sleep, snoring softly.

 

* * *

 

As the sun began to set they woke and dawned their stiff, but fresh clothes and lumbered back to the house. Without a word they repeated their domestic ritual they had performed the night prior and sat sated and anxious by the light of the fire.

 

* * *

 

In his periphery he saw the sudden movement as Edward reached over and fisted his hair, bending his head back cruelly and mashing their mouths together so hard he could taste the blood. The kiss continued frantically until they were both tired and sore and Edward sat back on his lap and stared at him with bloody, kiss swollen lips and his light eyes dark with pupil. Just as suddenly he leaned forward and pressed his face to Roy's sweaty clavicle and wrapped his arms around him.

 

* * *

 

 

The wait for the moon to reach it's zenith was long and painful, but still they sat beside the fading fire with books open in their laps. They'd never admit it, but they flicked through the pages without ever taking in the words.

 

* * *

 

 

They knew it was time when the energy changed, as if the transmutation circle pulled at them, humming somewhere at the back of their minds. Roy felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise with fear and the animal in him wanting to dart from the danger. If Edward was afraid, he didn't show it, his steps resolute and final. Something was swallowing the sound of the forest, like the eerie silence before a storm that sends the animals scurrying for cover.

Both of them knelt, stiffly and painfully, at the circles edges, the steady hum rising to ring in their ears. It would be genocide again, not slow and painful like Ishbal. There would be no suffering, just a sudden mammoth increase in pressure. A whole country suddenlt crushed flat under the weight of alchemy. Their last meal churned in his stomach. He wanted to vomit.

Across the room, Edward was staring at him, eyes wet and welling, the corners of his mouth trembling.

“I wish it could have been different,” Ed stuttered, swallowing thickly.

“I know.” Roy answered, coughing around the swelling of his throat. “I love you.” He heard more than saw the pain in Ed's quiet keen.

“I know.”

 

* * *

 

 

Edward's bare palms slapped together, and in unison they pressed their hands to the circle. Sick, yellow light flooded the room, blinding and acrid and roaring. He felt pressure well in his ears, the drums rupturing and blood seeping from his nose. His stomach heaved, and he felt the strange sensation of the vessels in his eyes rupture.

 

* * *

 

 

And as soon as it began, everything was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Major Character Death.


	8. Chapter 8

* * *

 

 

Another word for dying  
11.7.2014  
  
We are freezing.  
A backwards combustion,   
like burning in reverse.   
  
Molecules decelerating  
till water swells our cells  
to the point of rupture,  
and our fingers look  
dipped in ink  
and smears dark poppies  
across our skin.   
  
I want to dig nails into  
your deadened flesh,  
twist the crystals from your hair,  
bite the blue from your lips  
until both our faces are smeared  
red and hot but we are awake  
and we are alive.   
  
We will breathe warmth back   
into our bodies somehow.   
Will fight the tempting slumber  
offered by ice and darkness,  
because we know sleep is just  
another word for dying. 

 

* * *

 

 

Stars Fall

2.25.2015  
  
This is what happens when stars fall.  
They light the way to where  
We all have bodies in the woods.  
Those dark, sunken plots of soil  
Where we fear to walk.  
  
We all have those dark rooms  
In empty houses.  
That are always cool and wet  
With soft buckling floors.  
  
The fires are long put out.  
The walls chalky with charcoal  
Where the flames arched it's back  
And flexed it's claws  
Leaving them soft   
And crumbling like sugar  
And feed the yielding moss.  
  
But you keep coming back  
To unearth your skeletons in the yard   
And assure they're still buried.

 

* * *

 

 

Cease  
2.17.2014  
  
There's something to be said for decay.  
For the way stars collapse in on themselves  
like nesting dolls.  
  
The same way hyacinths resolutely bloom,  
their stalks bowing beneath the weight of flowers  
and decay,  
the sweetness of rot mingling with humid evening.  
  
There's a steadfastness in entropy.  
Like how you may not know if the sun  
will rise tomorrow, but once it does  
it is sure to set again.

 

* * *

 

 

This pretentious poem is based on principles of Alchemy, at the bottom there's a really quick and dirty crash course in basic Alchemy.

 

Coniunctio

5.20.2014

 

Even in the shade

we are burning.

 

The sun paints the sky

white with heat and

sets fire to the grasslands

till the plains are

filled with flame

that bakes the clay of the earth.

 

Our blood boils

in our embraced bodies.

Our hearts cook in our chests

as if we are crucibles.

 

We are reduced to

our most basic parts.

Refined by our many deaths.

 

Until our mingled ash

is exalted by the rain.

 

* * *

 

 

Alchemic terms alluded to:

 

Calcinatio: Oxidization, ashing of the metals. The spirit must suffer several deaths before it can change.

 

Coniunctio: The uniting, joining together. This can take place in the most intense heat.

 

Exaltatio: Another raising of the essences, often by adding water.

 

These are only 3 of the 11 steps of the divine genesis of the Philosopher's Stone, a perfect distillation of the elements. It must pass through 4 states of being divided into the blackening, whitening, yellowing, or reddening which corresponds to the four elements of earth, air, water and fire as well as the qualities of cold, hot, moist, and dry. This is an attempt to unify heaven and earth. Artistole elaborated on Pythagoras' framework by proposing that this would result in a fifth element, the quintessence that would yield Gold, both physical and metaphorical, that was to them the most perfect metal.

.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Inspiration for the location comes from this: www.englishrussia.com/2008/03/10/abandoned-wooden-miracles/  
> If you consider Drachma's time parallel to our Russia, these houses would have been built in the late 16th century. Thank you for your time.


End file.
